Policing and Crime

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), and I welcome him to the House. It was an articulate and beautiful speech, and I am sure he will be a very good advocate for his constituents. Many of us in this House support prisoner rehabilitation and the ability of most offenders to turn their lives around, so it is good to have another person join us in that cause.

This is a timely debate, because yesterday evening I and other Members representing constituencies across south Wales met the chief constable of South Wales police. I pay tribute to South Wales police, who epitomise the best of public service. Since being elected in 2015, I have learned a lot about the nature of the challenges South Wales police face every day in Cardiff Central and across our city. I have had the privilege of spending time with officers and control staff at their headquarters in Bridgend and with officers who patrol Cardiff city centre, seeing and hearing all about policing.

Schemes such as “Give a Day to Policing” are excellent, and the continuing dialogue and co-operation of police in Cardiff Central helps me and my constituents a great deal. I thank the police community support officers in my neighbourhood policing team who have provided a lot of support to me and my staff in difficult circumstances, particularly over the past couple of years, to ensure our safety. I really appreciate it.

All of this has broadened my knowledge and understanding of policing, which had previously centred on trying to get my clients out of police custody as quickly as possible when I was a practising criminal defence solicitor. I now know so much more about what it is like on the other side.

South Wales police are underfunded, under-resourced and overwhelmed with work. Conservative Members will point to the recently announced money to recruit officers—136 of them for the whole of south Wales—but there is no escaping the fact that this does not get near to reaching the officer numbers we had in 2010 before the decade of austerity and cuts.

Of course I welcome the money for recruitment this year but, in the context of Cardiff growing faster than any other major UK city outside London, it is not enough. It is not enough for the whole of south Wales, and it is certainly not enough for Cardiff.

As one of our four UK capital cities, Cardiff hosts more than 400 major civic, political and royal events every year and, on top of a decade of police funding cuts, my constituents are having to find money to contribute to the extra £4 million for the annual cost of policing these events—that is the equivalent of more than 60 police officers. I have repeatedly raised the anomaly of capital city funding with successive Home Office Ministers, Policing Ministers and Wales Office Ministers over the past few years. There is no valid explanation for why Cardiff is discriminated against in this way when it comes to capital city funding, so will the Minister please confirm that he will meet me and my Cardiff constituency neighbours to discuss how this unfair and unequitable situation can be resolved? During each of those 400 events, police officers have to be drawn from around the South Wales area into Cardiff and the city centre, which has a knock-on effect on the ability of the police to do their jobs, and protect people and property across the whole of South Wales.

That pressure comes on top of the daily pressure of rising crime, particularly violent crime, drug offences and domestic abuse. South Wales police have 30,000 reports of domestic abuse a year, never mind the reports of all the other crimes. In July last year, they had their highest total number of calls in a month in their history. As the chief constable was telling us yesterday, in the past year the force has seen an increase of 140% in reports of sexual violence; drug offences, both dealing and possession, have rocketed; and serious violence and knife crime has doubled. Drugs are at the heart of much of the crime in my constituency, as they are across the country.

The police cannot possibly deal with this challenge without much greater funding, and I now believe, having taken time to come to a firm view on this, that we need to look much more urgently at the issue of the drugs epidemic and at how it is driving the rise in crime. We need to think about options and solutions that have previously been unthinkable. This is a major public health issue, a major policing issue and a major criminal justice issue, but none of those policy areas can tackle this alone. I worry that even in combination they cannot tackle the crisis that we face, and that decade of cuts is making that crisis worse. We now need to look at safe drug consumption rooms.

My constituents are deeply concerned about rising crime and decreasing community safety, and many of them gave me their views in a survey I ran just before the general election last year. Overall, there were three broad themes to what they were concerned about: violent crime and knife crime; drugs, both dealing and their use in front of people, including children, and the associated antisocial behaviour; and theft and burglaries. Many constituents made it clear to me that the Government’s cuts to police funding and to our Welsh Government’s budget were having an impact on local services, and that that in itself was playing a major part in all these crimes and the increasing number of them. My constituents overwhelmingly want to see more police on our streets. Neighbourhood policing is vital to them, as I know it is to many Members from across the country. My constituents want more funding for Wales, to provide services and resources to help people who are homeless or who have a drug addiction—or face both those problems. They want to see the police in their neighbourhoods and their communities, both to prevent crime and to protect citizens and property. So my message to the Government is: 136 new officers across South Wales is not enough—we really need many more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady is a real advocate for her constituency, which is sadly so often blighted by serious violence. The National Crime Agency, of course, conducts a national threat assessment, and I am happy to update the House on its report either orally or through other means.

We owe it to our young people to offer them a better future and to end the pervasive sense of hopelessness that drives so many into the arms of criminality. This principle was eloquently articulated in the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger). Representing Devizes, he is perhaps the only Member of this House who can call the great historic monument of Stonehenge a “vulgar upstart.” One sentence of his speech struck home with me:

“Our love of our country begins with love of our neighbourhoods.”

He brings to the House his experience of working with young people in prisons and of the vital role of independent civil society organisations in helping to cut crime and in helping those young people, which I will address later in my speech.

We have heard a lot today about the Government’s plan to bring 20,000 extra officers—new officers—into police forces across the country. One of the first acts of this Government was to make that pledge, and the work has already started. I am delighted that all forces have joined us in meeting this commitment to the public and have prioritised recruitment. Some £700 million from the police settlement will be made available to police and crime commissioners to help forces recruit the first tranche of 6,000 officers by the end of March 2021.

[Jo Stevens]

Will the Minister talk to her colleagues in the Ministry of Justice about the prison officers who had to be recruited after thousands were removed from the Prison Service? There are real problems with recruitment and retention, and these are very inexperienced officers. The danger is that the same could happen with this recruitment of new police officers.

Free Movement of EU Nationals

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I have in my constituency a family who came here from France more than 20 years ago. They have worked here, and both their sons were born here and are in schools in Edinburgh. While one son is automatically entitled to a British passport under the new system, the other is not. They have been asked to provide proof of residence and employment. They have only ever worked here, they pay tax here and they have national insurance cards, but they are being asked to prove their entitlement to stay here under the settled status scheme. They have also been asked to prove how long and how often they have visited France. I do not know whether any other Members here keep plane and train tickets for 20 years, but I certainly do not. However, that is probably the only way to prove where and when we were in the European Union at any time in the past 20 or 30 years under freedom of movement.

What about the many thousands of students who have travelled to or from the EU as part of the Erasmus scheme? Last year at my daughter’s graduation ceremony at Edinburgh University, an honorary doctorate was given to the man who established that scheme. As I looked out on that hall, I saw students, graduates and academics from all across Europe who have come here to make a contribution.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I represent a university constituency and have students, academics and researchers coming to see me every week. Does the hon. Lady agree that the international standing of our universities—a global brand that has been so successful—is at risk from this isolationist, inward-looking policy of ending free movement?

[Christine Jardine]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. There are many projects in this country that have been initiated by academics from elsewhere in Europe and that we would not have had without freedom of movement. Our reputation stands to be damaged by the ending of freedom of movement.

Amid all that concern, and despite what the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) has said, we still have no clear picture of what the Government intend. For example, the Home Office changed its position in August, saying that free movement would end on 31 October. In September, the Government rowed back, admitting that primary legislation is needed to end free movement and saying that free movement will continue until the end of 2020.

The Government now say they will just make some changes to free movement as of 31 October. Are we surprised that everyone, including hon. Members, is waiting for some clarity from the Government and perhaps thinks that the Government themselves do not know the implications of ending free movement or how to end it?

There is confusion and lack of clarity about what the Government will do on immigration and what will replace the current immigration system. Then there is the impact on different sectors. Only 2% of employers in this country sponsor visas from non-EU nationals, but thousands more have EU nationals working for them and will now need to grapple with an immigration system of which they have no knowledge. What will they do? Will they have to employ lawyers? What about landlords who will have to have visas for immigrants? What about schools, many of which are now informing parents about the settled status system on which, as we have heard, there is no clarity whatever?

There is one other issue that particularly bothers me: the Good Friday agreement, which protects, in its words,

“the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland.”

The Government simply have not got to grips with what that will mean when we lose free movement. What about the rights of the people in Northern Ireland? How will they be affected by the loss of free movement?

One other thing comes to mind. When I was a young woman starting out on a career, I heard a British Prime Minister talking about how wonderful the single market would be, and how it would allow businesses in this country to prosper by putting no limitation on them and allowing the workforce to move freely across Europe. About a week ago, I was talking to a young girl who is slightly older than I was when my parents took part in the original EU referendum, in which we decided to stay in what was then, I believe, the European Economic Community. I thought about all the opportunities that I have had and that my generation have all enjoyed, including my generation of students, academics, business people and entrepreneurs, or those who simply wanted to travel. I thought about the benefits that we have enjoyed for 40 years, and I thought about what the end of that single market and that collaboration with Europe, which that Prime Minister promised us, will mean to this generation.

I also thought about what that Prime Minister might think, and I wonder what this Conservative Government would tell her, about their bringing an end to what in many ways was her vision of Europe, which they are now betraying, and the generation that they are betraying, who will not have the opportunities that every person in this Chamber has had for 40 years. How will we explain that? How will we look members of this generation in the eye and tell them that, while it was good enough for us and we benefited from it, they cannot? I say that because, while people can dress this up however they want, with red buses with numbers on the side, and while the Prime Minister can say whatever he likes about leaving, deal or no deal, it boils down to the simple fact that without freedom of movement we will all be poorer.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service (Kit Malthouse)]

Thank you for presiding over this morning’s debate, Sir David. I apologise for the fact that you have a Minister responding who is not directly responsible for this area of policy but, as you may know, things are going on in Manchester that mean we are ducking and diving slightly.

It would perhaps be easy to dismiss some of the issues that the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) raised, not least because much of the emotion and assertion is incorrect, but I recognise that she, like many people, is grieving—mourning the outcome of a referendum three years ago with which she profoundly disagreed. Much of her speech this morning was a rerun of the debates held during that referendum and since, accompanied by great emotion and controversy across the nation. I urge her and other hon. Members to try to be as measured as possible about the coming changes in the immigration system, not least because, as she says, they will affect a great number of people. This morning I aim to provide clarity on some of the points that she has perhaps not yet grasped, unlike the 1.7 million people who have applied for EU settled status.

The Government have been clear that on 31 October the UK will leave the European Union. Our intention is to leave with a deal and, as you will have seen in the newspapers, Sir David, work is ongoing to get that deal. But we must also prepare for a no-deal exit, not least because the EU may choose that outcome itself. At that point, free movement as it stands will end. On 4 September the Home Secretary set out the immigration arrangements for European economic area and Swiss citizens moving to the UK after a no-deal Brexit on 31 October. To be clear, those new immigration arrangements will not affect EEA citizens who are already living in the UK before we exit. The Government value the enormous contribution that they make to our economy, public services and national life. They are our friends, our families and our neighbours. That is why we have given an unequivocal guarantee to the more than 3 million EEA citizens resident in the UK that their rights will be protected, and we urge them to stay.

The Government have delivered that protection through the EU settlement scheme, which will give them a UK immigration status and rights in UK law. They will have at least until 31 December 2020 to make an application to the scheme. The EUSS makes it easy for EU citizens to get the status they need to remain here permanently after we leave the EU, with the same rights to work and to access benefits and services as they have now. Applicants need only complete three key steps: prove their identity, show that they live in the UK, and declare any criminal convictions. It is free to make an application. There is less hassle than when applying for a bank account or renting a flat.

[Jo Stevens]

I seek the Minister’s help. A couple of weeks ago I met a constituent whose wife has applied for settled status and has received a letter from the Home Office confirming that her application has been successful, but it also says that the letter is not proof that she has settled status. How does somebody prove that they have settled status?

[Kit Malthouse]

My team will provide me with the answer shortly, and I will come back to the hon. Lady on that question.

Thus far, 1.7 million people have applied to the scheme and more than 1.5 million have already been granted settled status. In a no-deal scenario, law-abiding individuals will also be able to live, study, work and access benefits and services in the UK until the remainder of the free movement framework is repealed by Parliament at the end of 2020. If they wish to stay beyond that point, EEA and Swiss citizens and their close families will be able to apply for European temporary leave to remain through a new scheme that we will launch after exit to provide them with a bridge into the new immigration system.

The ETLR scheme will be opened by the Home Office after exit. Applications will be free and involve a simple online process and identity, security and criminality checks; successful applicants will receive permission to stay for three years. This will give individuals and their employers confidence and certainty that they can remain in the UK after the end of 2020. Anyone who wishes to stay in the UK after their temporary status expires will need to make a further application under the new points-based immigration system.

On that future immigration system, our vision is for a truly global country where we welcome the brightest and best, where we are more outward-facing, and where we decide who comes here based on what they have to offer and their circumstances, not where they come from. That is why the Home Secretary has commissioned the independent Migration Advisory Committee to review the benefits of a points-based system and what best practice can be learned from other international comparators, including the Australian immigration system. The MAC is also undertaking an existing commission on salary thresholds.

We will announce the details of the UK’s future immigration system early next year, after considering the MAC’s advice on these issues. That will provide time for businesses to adapt ahead of the implementation of the new system from January 2021.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that we regularly supply a letter to the Select Committee containing much information on the scheme, and I will take his suggestion into account.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Many, many victims of this tragedy will be pulling together complex cases involving heads of loss across many areas. Will legal aid be available to those who need it?

[Sajid Javid]

We are looking carefully into what kind of support is needed, because some cases will be less complex. In the kind of complex case suggested by the hon. Lady, we want to make sure that people have help, if they need it, to put their case together. We want to make sure that no one is denied justice and that people can make a proper claim.

Knife Crime

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise that knife crime happens not just in large urban areas, but in rural and coastal ones. I am afraid that I must just pull him up on one detail, which is that it was not the Home Secretary who made decisions about police numbers. That is the responsibility of police and crime commissioners, who manage budgets locally. That is the case precisely because they live in their local community so they can set their policing priorities, and they are voted in or out by the local electorate.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

The Minister must accept the reality, which is that funding cuts to police forces across Wales and England since 2010 have directly contributed to the rise in knife crime. In my constituency last year, 131 knives were seized inside Cardiff magistrates court—inside a court! What are the Government doing to reassure my constituents that they will be safe on the streets?

[Victoria Atkins]

We have launched the serious violence strategy, and we are doing a great deal of work in Wales. As I have said in previous answers, we are funding the early intervention youth fund, the youth endowment fund, knife-free campaigns in the media and small anti-knife crime charities. We are about to consult on a public health duty; we are taking the Offensive Weapons Bill through the House to strengthen the powers of the police; and a couple of weeks ago we voted to increase the police budget by up to £970 million with the help of police and crime commissioners.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I say to the hospitality industry and others who have concerns about the end of freedom of movement that it is perfectly possible to have our own independent immigration policy without freedom of movement, as many other countries with successful hospitality sectors do, while catering for the needs of all sectors. That is what this balanced immigration package achieves. We have been speaking to many different industrial sectors, including that sector, and we will continue to listen, but I believe that what we have set out will absolutely meet their needs.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has just said that there will be no cap on international students, yet the Government include international students in their migration targets. How will he square that circle?

[Sajid Javid]

First, the decision about what is included in immigration statistics and what is not is an independent decision for the Office for National Statistics. I have discussed the issue with it and last year we asked the Migration Advisory Committee to look into it. Its recommendation was to keep the number in the statistics, reflecting the fact that, although most students leave the country, there is an impact on infrastructure and public services. I am very sympathetic to the issue the hon. Lady raises, but I remind her that it is an independent decision for the Office for National Statistics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I will be voting against this deal. Based on the substantial number of my constituents who have contacted me about this vote, it seems I will be doing so with their overwhelming support—nearly 95% of them have urged me to vote against. We are now a month on from when this vote should have taken place—a month that has achieved nothing, much like the last 932 days since the narrow outcome of the referendum. It was an advisory referendum, not a binding one. It was a referendum that disenfranchised more than 4 million people, one in which no 16 or 17-year-old was allowed to vote and no EU citizens living here and working here—they are part of the fabric of this country and society—were allowed to vote. The ballot asked just one question—whether to remain or leave. It did not ask how we should leave, nor what should happen afterwards.

And 932 days on, we now know, because we have facts, that the referendum was drenched in illegality by both the Vote Leave and the Leave.EU campaigns. We know that electoral law was broken, that campaign spending limits were breached and that impermissible foreign donations came through online platforms. We have those facts from the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner, and, following the work of those regulators, investigative journalists and our Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which has spent a year painstakingly investigating widespread evidence, the National Crime Agency is investigating Arron Banks, the largest political donor in UK history, and senior figures of the Leave.EU campaign, because there are reasonable grounds to suspect that Banks was not the true source of £8 million in funding to the Leave.EU campaign. That is important—it should not be dismissed as sour grapes—because it raises really serious concerns, which this Government have deliberately chosen to ignore, about the legality and the validity of the referendum outcome.

I voted against triggering article 50. In my speech in that debate, I said that the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, had behaved recklessly in his approach to the reform negotiations at the EU, and that he was

“a man who put himself and his party before the national interest, and who gambled our country’s safety, future prosperity and long-standing European and wider international relationships to save his party and his premiership from imploding”.—[Official Report, 31 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 895.]

He failed miserably.

Two years on, I regret to say that those words, and those actions, can equally be applied to the current Prime Minister. This whole period has been an exercise in how not to negotiate. Of all the ironies, yesterday’s desperate phone calls by the Prime Minister to some trade union leaders—who are professional, expert negotiators from whom she could have learned so much—were the first contact she has made with them.

[Ms Abbott]

Does my hon. Friend share my surprise that it has taken two and a half years for this Government to reach out to trade unionists and other key stakeholders?

[Jo Stevens]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend: it is astonishing. The refusal to work not just with the TUC and the unions but with Opposition Members to develop a negotiating strategy that would secure a deal in the interests of the whole of the UK and each of our four constituent nations has been grossly negligent. The strategy has not been one of strong leadership. Stubbornness and failure to listen and to engage are the hallmarks of weak leadership, and they have led this country into this complete mess.

The best course of action for the country’s future stability, economy and security would, of course, be to revoke article 50. I suspect that there are very many colleagues across the House who would privately accept that but who do not feel that they could openly commit to supporting revocation at the moment. However, there is no majority in this House or the country for no deal. In the absence of that, or a general election and change of Government, the right course of action must be to ask the electorate what they now think. I know that is what the majority of my constituents want, in the absence of revoking article 50. Nearly 90% of those who have contacted me have told me that. I know this because I have been asking them for their views since 2016, and they have been giving them to me. Every published poll in the past six months also confirms that.

People are allowed to change their minds. The referendum result in 2016 was not a result in perpetuity. In the words of one of the Government’s former Brexit Ministers: “It’s not a democracy if you can’t change your mind.” In Wales, we would never have had devolution and the creation of the National Assembly had we not had a second referendum, in which people did change their minds.

I will finish on this point. All the irresponsible, dangerous and inflammatory talk that we have heard in recent months about civil unrest, riots and treachery if we vote down this deal next week and have a people’s vote has to stop. Every time I come into this Chamber, I look at Jo’s shield and think of her bravery and determination during her time here, and what she must have faced in those final moments confronted by extreme right-wing violence. We cannot allow a small minority of fascist thugs to undermine our democracy. They are using Brexit for the advancement of their far-right ideology, and we all have to oppose it.

In the vote next week, each of us will make our own judgment as to what is right in the interests of our constituents and our country. I am very clear about what I feel is right, and I will vote against this deal.

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[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

What excellent timing, Mr Speaker, because the right hon. Lady has just said—I think—that Labour does want to end free movement, without then explaining how it will deliver frictionless trade with no more barriers than we currently have, which is Labour’s policy, even though she knows the European Union will never accept that. I do not think we will take any lessons on consistency from the Opposition.

We have had an excellent debate today and I commend all hon. Members who have spoken. It is a shame that the shadow Home Secretary is not in her place for the end of the debate. I thank the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for her reference to one of my favourite childhood films, “Lassie Come Home”. Of course in that story, Lassie was given to a member of the aristocracy, the Duke of Rudling, but Lassie was not happy and she broke free, without any kind of referendum, and came home. There is a lesson for all of us.

Today’s debate has focused on immigration and the central point, made so eloquently by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, is that leaving the EU allows the Government, for the first time in almost 40 years, to respond to public concern by restoring sovereign control over immigration policy. Part of that, of course, will be to be generous to EU citizens who live among us and contribute so magnificently to our national life.

If the shadow Home Secretary had been here, I would have reassured her, as I do the hon. Members for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and others who raised the rights of EU citizens in this country. Part two of the withdrawal agreement describes how EU citizens currently living in the UK will enjoy broadly the same rights after we leave. Indeed, if we leave without a deal, the Government have made it clear that our position will be the same. While the shadow Home Secretary was correct to remind us that we are talking about the lives of real people—our friends, colleagues and neighbours—I respectfully suggest that it does not help to say that there is any doubt whatsoever about the status of EU citizens, when in fact there is no doubt. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) spoke passionately about the effect of uncontrolled migration on her constituency and how it risked dividing communities. She, along with many Government Members, will therefore understand the significance of restoring parliamentary sovereignty.

We have not talked just about migration today. I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and my hon. Friends the Members for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), for Southend West (Sir David Amess), for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) and for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) for emphasising the obligation that falls on all of us to honour the referendum decision. Although I did not hear all those speeches, one of the most powerful contributions came from my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), who said that if we do not deliver Brexit, it will confirm people’s deepest fears about the conceit of the political class.

To her credit, when the shadow Home Secretary was here, she was clear that we have to honour the referendum vote. What the Government say to Opposition Members is, “If you really do want to honour the vote, stop playing parliamentary games and remember that leave-voting Labour voters will never forgive the Labour party if it uses parliamentary procedures in a way that ends up stopping Brexit.”

I say to the hon. Members for Ealing Central and Acton and for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and others who called for a second referendum that they risk doing profound damage to the integrity of our political system. It cannot be right to ask the British people to vote again in the hope of producing a different result. They should listen to the wise words of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who talked about the breach of trust there would be between politicians and the people who gave them their jobs if we failed to honour the referendum result.

[Jo Stevens]

The Foreign Secretary has spoken about trust and validity. Does he accept that, as I said in my speech, the illegality during the referendum has already caused mistrust? People doubt the validity of the outcome of the referendum because of the things that went on, which have been found by our regulators, the Information Commissioner and the Electoral Commission.

[Mr Hunt]

This is a matter for the Electoral Commission, but exaggerated claims were made on both sides of that debate, as indeed—I think this is fair to say—they are generally made on both sides in general election campaigns. However, people listened to those claims on both sides, and they came to a democratic decision, and that is the foundation of trust in our country between politicians and the people who give them their jobs.

Future Immigration

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The commitment of the White Paper and of the system it represents is to bring net migration down to a more sustainable level.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Average earnings in Wales are, in fact, less than £26,500 a year, so does the Home Secretary recognise the damage that his policy will do to the Welsh economy? I ask him please not to tell me about a shortage occupation list, because that list will extend from one end of this Chamber to the other.

[Sajid Javid]

I believe the system will work for all parts of the UK. I do not recognise the point that it will do damage to the Welsh economy, which would be the wrong conclusion to draw from the system. I had a discussion this morning with the First Minister of Wales in which we went through the White Paper in a bit more detail. Obviously the First Minister needs to look at it more carefully, and I am happy to sit down with him and with hon. Members who represent Wales to discuss it further.

Leaving the EU: Women’s Rights

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered women’s rights after the UK leaves the EU.

As ever, Mr Hollobone, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. To start, I thank Gina Miller, and Nina, Tess and the other people from OFOC—Our Future Our Choice—who gave me the idea for this debate. Some of them are in the Public Gallery today.

On 23 June 2016, the UK took the landmark decision to exit the European Union by 52% to 48%. The pound immediately plummeted and, swiftly, there was a change of Prime Minister. Knowing what we know now, however, enacting Brexit will clearly not be as easy as we were promised. We were told that it would be a cinch, a doddle, a trade deal that would be the “easiest in…history”. It is also now coming to light that there will be a worse scenario for women—even though we now have a PM who is one.

Two years on from the decision, we still do not know exactly where we are headed in terms of the final deal. The Cabinet has suffered the high-level resignations of both the Brexit Secretary and the Foreign Secretary, and since 2015 a subject that never featured on a doorstep in my election campaign—that was never mentioned at all—has now become all that there is, taking up valuable parliamentary bandwidth. As the Minister—whom I respect and like very much—knows, we are meant to have a domestic violence Bill to consider soon, but this bloomin’ Brexit is taking up all the bandwidth. Brexit is all we ever see, and it dominates the airwaves.

We do know, however, that every Government impact study, for every region of the country and every sector of the economy, predicts that things will be worse. Above all, a multitude of factors add up to the inescapable conclusion that women will be the hardest hit of all by Brexit.

In recent months we have heard admonitions from farming, finance and fisheries, but females have been largely absent from that picture, whether among the voices leading up to the decision—the human face of the campaign was Nigel Farage—or the negotiating teams that we see on the news, with the exception of the PM, of course. Olly Robbins is, sadly, not Olivia Robbins, but one of the men in suits. All we saw on the news yesterday was dark-suited chaps engaged in Tory blue-on-blue warfare—internal party-management issues that are destroying our country. That is a massive oversight, especially as when one drills down to the gendered nature of the effects of Brexit—we have all heard about lost jobs, cuts to services and a squeeze on family budgets—women have the most to lose.

The scant progress in negotiations means that, all this time on, more than two years in, zero trade deals have been secured to date, and the Chequers plan has been rejected by the EU—personified in another man, Michel Barnier—so “no deal” is now seriously being talked about. If that ever came to pass, or even if our desperation to avoid it led to a bad deal, the UK would be put in a weak position to resist pressure from other countries to go for scenarios that would damage women’s rights at work, adversely impact them as consumers or undermine the quality of public service standards. I shall outline a couple of examples.

In terms of economic impact—Bill Clinton said, “The economy, stupid”, but the remain campaign was critiqued for a lot of its economic doomsday scenarios—the fall in GDP will most adversely affect sectors such as clothing and textiles, which have a majority female workforce and are particularly vulnerable to increased trade barriers. Despite people voting in good faith for £350 million every week of additional money for the NHS post-Brexit—that was plastered on the side of a big red bus—we now know that that will not happen. Instead, we face the prospect of opening up our NHS and other public services to overseas competition—that means grubby American insurance companies getting their mitts on our NHS.

The health service relies on a workforce from overseas and we hear that nurses from EU nations are already leaving in droves—we have not even left yet. There is also the ticking demographic time bomb of a worsening crisis in social care. We constantly hear about that, and it is the biggest spend in any local authority budget. It is the UK’s lowest-paid sector, where 80% of workers are women, but it, too, is hollowing out as EU staffers go elsewhere or home. The profession is one that UK-born people eschew. In such a situation—some analysis came out last week—women always, sadly, bear the burden as unofficial carers. They care for elderly parents and, as the sandwich generation, care for their kids at one end and their parents at the other. If they are forced to cut corners at work or even to depart employment altogether to do that, we will have massive gaps in our labour market.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She mentioned social care and the preponderance of women in the sector. Through membership of the EU, women have also gained rights to part-time and flexible working, which are particularly important to the 6.2 million women who work part time because they have caring responsibilities. Does she agree that there is a double whammy of social care workers leaving and women with social care responsibilities unable to have their rights protected?

[Dr Huq]

I agree with my hon. Friend completely—she is also learned, as a distinguished lawyer for many years before she came to this place—and she makes a good point: it is not only the nature of the work, but the structuring of the contracts. Our party has argued against zero-hours contracts—we will ban such employment malpractices—and things such as part-time working directives have kept such women afloat so, as she says, they are being hit twice over.

Consider plummeting GDP, which is likely to have the knock-on effect of further cuts to Government spending on services. We have a clever Conservative Government who have shifted a lot of the burden on to local government budgets, but women are more likely to work in the public sector and to need public services, so they are the worst affected. Analysis has shown that, as it is, austerity has hit women: I think 80% of the savings—a euphemism for cuts—has fallen on women.

Consider women as consumers: increased tariffs and a fall in the value of the pound will result in increased food prices, which hit the poorest hardest. Looking at wage differences, we see that women are more likely to be poor and, like it or not, in the traditional family unit women are more likely to be bearing the burden of managing the household finances and shopping for food. I do not want to use horrible stereotypes—“Hi, honey, I’m home!”—but that is the case. We have already witnessed rising prices and things such as the shrinking size of the Toblerone bar—it is diminishing before our eyes, even though we have not yet left the EU. Potentially, we might also be subject to diluted standards, if we mirror US ones and get imported hormone-injected beef. Chlorinated chicken, anyone? Mmmm! All that is bad news.

Hard-won rights of maternity and paternity leave and, indeed, against pregnancy discrimination all came from the EU. We have no guarantee that we will uphold them or that we will mirror future advances. In 2017, the Women and Equalities Committee—a Conservative majority Select Committee, so not my words but theirs—did a report on “Ensuring strong equalities legislation after the EU exit”. The report stated:

“At present, domestic legislation and EU legal structures together provide the UK’s strong equality protections. Stakeholders have expressed concern that the removal of the EU legal underpinning, including the court system, will lead to a weakening of equality protection in the future unless its full effects are understood. It is therefore important for the Government, during the process of leaving the EU, to ensure that robust equality protection is embedded at each milestone. The Government should ensure that equality protections—including but not limited to workers’ rights—remain to the fore as negotiations begin and throughout the leaving process.”

That was in 2017. Since then, we have had a general election that took up eight weeks of valuable negotiating time, in a time-limited process set by the Government. But that report still should prevail. Will the Minister tell us how many of the report’s 15 recommendations have been adopted? I have heard nothing since.

We are at a crucial crossroads. The Secretary of State for the Environment said that we could theoretically opt to exceed the existing gender equality standards when we leave. The Government could do that—it is technically possible. The existing stuff we have via EU frameworks could be bettered. But the omens are not good, going by the previous form of Conservative Governments dating back to Mrs Thatcher’s dislike of the social chapter, and going by the Brexit Minister Lord Callanan’s criticism of the pregnant workers directive and the agency workers regulations, which my hon. Friend referred to. When he was an MEP, Lord Callanan called them “barriers to employment” and made a speech advocating that they be “scrapped”. It is all very googleable. Never let it be forgotten that the UK tried to block the EU’s pregnancy discrimination directive, but was overturned by the European Court of Justice.

Whether we exceed what is there or go backwards, it is unclear what the enforcement mechanisms would be. We are to cut ourselves off from the additional layer of accountability and recourse provided by the charter of fundamental rights, as the Government have vowed to end the ECJ’s direct jurisdiction. There is nothing to guarantee that gender equality law will not regress to below the UK’s current level. Even though it was a Labour Government, I am proud to say, who introduced the Equal Pay Act 1970 before we were a member of the EU, equal pay was one of the establishing principles of the original treaty of Rome in 1957. Indeed, the UK’s weaker home-grown provisions in the 1970 Act were significantly strengthened by signing up to the European Economic Community equal pay directive on joining, as that obliged employers to pay women and men equally for the first time. The Equal Pay Act did not do that—it merely gave women the right to make equal pay claims.

Sacrificing workplace rights on which women rely, such as parental leave, equal treatment and rights for part-time workers, at the altar of increased flexibility and “competitiveness” could be easily done. It is easy to knock the EU—our leader gave it seven out of 10, but who would say 10 out of 10? We know the arguments against unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, but it has a good record on various equality measures. It enacted violence against women directives and the blue badge scheme, which is a European arrangement for parking for those with reduced mobility that is transferable among nation states. As MPs, I am sure we have all been asked to countersign the paperwork. Mobility features to accommodate wheelchairs and buggies on buses—I have been on many a bus with a buggy—originated from the EU. Red tape and EU directives have made life easier for women, by introducing anti-harassment laws and properly paid holiday rights, reducing hours worked and making it illegal to be dismissed for pregnancy.

I have a set of questions for the Minister—who I am usually quite a fan of, for a Tory—and I hope she will give proper answers and not just a gloss-over. What discussions has she had with colleagues from the Department for Exiting the European Union to ensure that Brexit does not disproportionately harm women, rather than just taking the Prime Minister’s word for it? The fact that we have a woman at the top does not enshrine continuity. What assurances will the Minister give to ensure that there is sufficient female representation during the remainder of the negotiating process? There is eight months to go, and there is the possibility of an extended article 50 process—it is not too late.

What steps are the Government taking to ensure that equality rights are not diluted after the UK leaves the EU, as per the Women and Equalities Committee report? What arbitration mechanisms can the Minister and her DExEU colleagues offer as a guarantor to hold future Governments to account? Will she reconsider the gender-blind approach to Government policy making and commit, like Labour, to gender-audit every policy and ensure action is taken now to avert disaster, and apply that to the Brexit deal so that we can evaluate the impact on women’s equality and financial well being?

Of course, women are people, and no Brexit scenario is a good scenario for anyone. Having entered the shady world of the reading room with the secret documents, I know that men, women and non-binary alike have all benefited from EU employment, environmental and consumer protections—things such as the European health insurance card, which entitles us to holiday healthcare, and the European arrest warrant, which protects us from criminals.

We will all suffer from the attempt to judderingly extricate ourselves unscathed from 40-plus years of progress, but women will most acutely feel the most adverse effects. Women also feature in the other block categories we hear about: EU nationals treated as collateral pawns in some sort of hostage situation, Brits abroad on the costa del wherever who will not be able to have their pensions paid into UK bank accounts. It is not only those people; the average Jo—that is not just Joseph but Josephine—suffers, too.

For both leavers and remainers, the opinion polls indicate widespread dissatisfaction at how it is going. Those who deem themselves to be satisfied are in single figures on every poll. Project fear has become project reality. Britain has slipped from the fifth-largest economy in the world to sixth, behind France. What a humiliation that we have been overtaken by those who Bart Simpson called the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys”.

Since 2016, new variables are coming to light all the time: customs arrangements for complex supply chains, rules of origin for car and aeroplane parts and the Northern Ireland border are all unresolved. More recently, we have heard of the contingency planning for no deal regarding food, medicines and fuel to be distributed by troops on the streets. That was never on the ballot paper. International firms are relocating European operations elsewhere: in the last week, Panasonic’s European headquarters went from Bracknell to Amsterdam and the London-based European Medicines Agency, which employs 900 people, has already upped sticks from Canary Wharf to the Netherlands. To add insult to injury, it is cutting Britain out of its contracts before we even leave, which is a body blow to pharmaceuticals.

With a £50 billion price tag of exit fees plus the Government’s undertaking to underwrite all structural and research funding, Brexit will not be cheap. In fact, it is unprecedented to leave an organisation that it took 12 years of negotiating to join in the first place, and which has potential applicants queuing around the block to get in. There are 27 of them and one of us. There is the prospect of returning to the dark ages—there are eight months to go and we are still in the dark about what happens next.

Surely, in order to make any decision, one should be in receipt of the full facts. People voted in good faith, but increasingly they believe what they are presented with is not what they thought they were getting. To resolve what Danny Dyer so memorably called the “mad riddle” of Brexit, a people’s vote is imperative. To validate the final deal must be a decision not just for 650 MPs, because we have a population of 60 million. Give that decision back to the people. The final say on whatever comes back from the negotiations—or on no deal, if it comes to that—must be presented to the electorate, with an option to remain, because we know what that looks like. Now that is what I call the will of the people.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for calling this debate on a subject which she knows we both share a great deal of interest in and are passionate about: ensuring not just that the rights of women are protected but that we flourish in our country in future.

May I give the hon. Lady a slightly different perspective on the 2015 election? She may not have been asked about Europe in Ealing Central and Acton, but I promise her that that was a subject of constant conversation in Lincolnshire. As we saw in the referendum, perhaps different parts of the country took different views. I am grateful to her for taking us through the history of legislation to enhance the rights of workers, people with protected characteristics and so on, both before we joined the European Union and during our membership. I am committed to continuing that journey, and I know that the Prime Minister and the Government are too.

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not be drawn into a re-enactment of the referendum debate—I suspect that will be to the relief of many people watching. However, I am delighted that she, I, the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) and my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately)—I congratulate her on being appointed as the Conservative party’s new vice-chair for women—and our other female colleagues can shape the law as it affects women in this country. My constituents in Louth and Horncastle voted strongly in favour of Brexit, and one of their key asks is that, in respecting the result of the referendum, we ensure that Parliament and our Supreme Court are sovereign in shaping and determining the laws under which we all live. That is the essence of the Government’s approach to reshaping our relationship with the EU as we withdraw.

Let me pick the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton up on chlorinated chicken. Given that my constituency feeds the country, I take a great interest in food standards and animal welfare. As a Back Bencher, I asked the Prime Minister—this was at Prime Minister’s Question Time soon after she was selected as Prime Minister—to ensure that we maintain food standards and animal welfare. She has been absolutely clear about that, and I hope that Members across the House can coalesce around those very good intentions.

Let me start with some essential reassurances. As the Government have said on numerous occasions—I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me for repeating this—there will be no reductions in protection under the Equality Acts of 2006 and 2010 and the equivalent provisions in Northern Ireland as a result of our exiting the European Union. She rightly asked about ensuring that every measure is gender audited as we leave the EU. The Government not only agree but have acted on that. Thanks to provisions in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which we passed only a few months ago, every piece of EU exit law will include an equalities impact statement.

As a starting point, I hope that that demonstrates our commitment to these incredibly important issues. That commitment applies to all protected characteristics, including sex and gender reassignment, and in all fields covered by the Equality Act 2010: employment, the provision of services and the exercise of public functions, education, housing, transport and associations.

More broadly, our key EU exit White Paper notes:

“Existing workers’ rights enjoyed under EU law will continue to be available in UK law on the day of withdrawal. The UK already exceeds EU minimum standards in a number of areas…and is a leader in many others.”

I will come on to a couple of those in a moment. The White Paper continues:

“Given this strong record, and in the context of the UK’s vision for the future relationship with the EU, the UK proposes that the UK and the EU commit to the non-regression of labour standards.”

Not only are we setting out our stall, but we are setting out our expectation and hope that the EU will mirror our actions.

During the passage of the withdrawal Act, we also published a right-by-right analysis of the EU charter of fundamental rights. We ensured that that set out exhaustively and comprehensively how each right in the charter is covered by domestic or existing legislation.

[Jo Stevens]

Will the Minister explain why, in the so-called impact assessments that I read in the reading room, there is reference to the “opportunities” that leaving the European Union brings in relation to the working time directive? Those sound to me like opportunities to water it down.

[Victoria Atkins]

I will ask the relevant Minister to write to the hon. Lady. We put EU law into domestic law through the EU withdrawal Act, which means that any debate about which EU laws apply and which do not will go through the House, so that will have the scrutiny of 650 Members of Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

1. If he will take steps to expand the scope of the refugee family reunion rules.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

The Government’s approach to refugee family reunion has provided a safe and legal route for more than 25,000 partners and children of those granted protection here in the last five years. We are listening carefully to calls to expand family reunion. We are monitoring the progress of two private Members’ Bills and are actively in discussion with non-governmental organisations.

[Jo Stevens]

While adults can sponsor their relatives, under UK rules separated children have no family reunion rights—not even to bring their parents to the UK. Every other country in the EU allows children to sponsor at least their closest relatives. When will the UK do the same?

[Sajid Javid]

I understand the concerns of the hon. Lady, who is right to raise this important matter. As I said a moment ago, we want to look at the private Members’ Bills and see what more we can do. On her specific issue about children, there is a concern that if we allow children to sponsor adults, whether their parents or others, that might cause harm, in that people might be incentivised to push children forward and put them through danger. I hope she understands that we need to consider such things carefully.

Hate Crime

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

The Minister has referred several times to the £2.4 million of funding under the Government’s anti-hate scheme. She has also said that just 45 places of worship have received funding. Are there any plans to increase the amount of funding and the number of places of worship that will attract funding this year?

[Victoria Atkins]

May I write to the hon. Lady, because I confess that I am unclear as to whether applications are in train and would not wish in any way to inadvertently answer incorrectly?

EU Nationals

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

It is good to have the chance to correct some of the inaccurate things that were stated just a few moments ago, and it was interesting to listen to the Scottish National party spokesman make a speech in which he simply decided not to recognise democracy. There was a referendum in this country, a decision was made and this Government will deliver what the people of the United Kingdom voted for, and we will deliver that in a way that gets a good deal for the United Kingdom.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?