Joanna Cherry
Main Page: Joanna Cherry (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh South West)Department Debates - View all Joanna Cherry's debates with the Home Office
Napier Barracks Asylum Accommodation
Joanna Cherry Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Philp
I think the public do expect us to reform the system and to control our borders, which is why we are bringing forward a new Bill very shortly to do exactly that. On the question of human rights, which my hon. Friend rightly raises, there is a review going on currently into the operation of the Human Rights Act 1998 that will be reporting, I think, later this year.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]
My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) has reminded the House that quite recently a Home Secretary resigned for inadvertently misleading the Home Affairs Committee. Other hon. Members have asked the Minister whether the current Home Secretary misled the Home Affairs Committee in oral evidence on 24 February this year. In response to those questions, the Minister keeps referring to a Public Health England letter from June this year that talks about full co-operation from the Home Office since spring of this year.
Of course, when the Home Secretary gave evidence on 24 February, she was talking about what had happened before then, not what happened this spring. Evidence presented to the High Court suggests that what she said—that the Department had previously followed public health guidance regarding Napier barracks in “every single way”—was simply not factually correct. The High Court has said that the fact that that public health evidence was ignored meant that the covid outbreak was “inevitable”, so why is the Home Secretary not tendering her resignation, as Amber Rudd had the grace and decency to do?
Chris Philp
The hon. and learned Lady refers to the letter of 1 June and says that it post-dates the Home Affairs Committee appearance on 24 February, which it does. However, the paragraph that I quoted says that the positive ongoing dialogue and collaborative working had been ongoing “since spring 2020”.