Windrush Compensation Scheme

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

It is absolutely right to reflect that the scheme has been open only for very few days so far, but we have received claims, registered them and sent out claim forms, which we are expecting back. I am not aware of any fraudulent claims to this scheme, and I am very conscious that we have put in place a rigorous process, which will enable all claims to be assessed fairly and indeed with full rigour. It is important to reflect that the Home Office is determined to work with individual claimants. There may be cases in which Home Office data enable us to assist people to determine the level of claim, and we are absolutely determined to do that.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important urgent question. It is imperative that the victims of the Windrush scandal are compensated justly for the terrible treatment that they endured.

I was a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights which took evidence from two of the victims of this disgraceful scandal. Anyone who heard their testimony about the effect of wrongful detention, and of years of persecution and threatened deportation, would regard some of the amounts in this scheme as derisory. After a year-long wait for the compensation scheme, it is disappointing that it has serious flaws, some of which have already been enumerated by others. It seems to be a great deal more mean than was suggested by the Home Secretary at the Dispatch Box, when he said that there would be no cap on the scheme. A cap, however, has clearly been introduced through the back door by applying internal caps on pay-outs, which will equate in effect to caps on how much individuals receive.

As has been said, some of the pay-outs under the scheme are wholly unacceptable: £250 per month for people who were rendered homeless as a result of that unjust treatment; or a maximum award of £500 for legal affairs. The Home Secretary refuses to compensate people for the full cost of immigration law advice; he claims that they do not need legal advice to make an immigration application. Any of us who deal with immigration matters in our constituency surgeries knows that not to be the case. Those of us who study closely the Home Office files of the individuals who gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights will tell you that only with the assistance of lawyers did they manage to disentangle themselves from this mess.

Is it not time for the Home Secretary to admit that removing legal aid from immigration matters was a huge error? The Government must fully compensate those of the Windrush generation who had to pay out of their own pockets to defend themselves against that state injustice. Will the Minister accept that the minimal pay-outs under this scheme will achieve nowhere near justice for such people? Does she agree that, if the Government were truly serious about rectifying the wrongs of the scandal, they would look at this scheme anew and scrap the hostile environment, which already threatens to have the same impact on European Union citizens applying for settled status.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her questions. She commented on the long wait for the scheme. She will of course recognise that not only did we appoint Martin Forde as an independent adviser to the scheme, but he came to the Home Office to ask for additional time, so that the consultation period could be open for longer. More than 1,400 responses were received to the consultation, and it was absolutely right to give adequate time for the responses to be considered carefully and thoroughly.

The hon. and learned Lady will be aware that the scheme includes both a tariff category and actuals. It is important to reflect that, where actuals have been accrued, the Home Office seeks to reimburse people through those fees. However, we recognise that it may be hard for people to provide evidence of actuals, which is why it was so necessary to put a tariff scheme in place as well, so that people would not be dependent simply on being able to provide the evidence.

The hon. and learned Lady made a wider point about the complexity of the Home Office’s immigration scheme. She will no doubt welcome the consultation on that being carried out by the Law Commission. If she has not already done so, I hope that she responds to that consultation before it closes, which I believe to be imminent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

That is absolutely correct. There will be no loss of entitlement to NHS services and treatment, and I thank my right hon. Friend for her assistance in conveying the message to her constituents that we want our EU friends and neighbours to be able to stay and access the services and benefits to which they are entitled. That is important.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

As the Minister says, the EU settled status scheme opened at the weekend, but the Government have not introduced a right of appeal to a tribunal against a decision under it. So in the event of a dispute about whether a person qualifies, the only means of independent redress is judicial review, which can be expensive and time-consuming. Does the Minister agree that that is not satisfactory? Will she commit to introducing a proper right of appeal?

[Caroline Nokes]

Of course, the hon. and learned Lady will know that an entire package of citizens’ rights for EU citizens is planned as part of the withdrawal agreement. That will provide the route, and her party might consider voting for it.

[Joanna Cherry]

As always, the Minister does not answer the question. It seems to me that there is no intention of introducing an independent right of appeal. Perhaps she can answer this question: the Costa amendment required the Government to ring-fence what had already been agreed for EU citizens’ rights; what progress has been made on securing that ring-fencing? Will the Prime Minister raise the matter at the EU Council on 10 April?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thought my response was quite clear. I reiterate to the hon. and learned Lady that the best way to ring-fence citizens’ rights is to vote for the deal.

Child Sexual Exploitation Victims: Criminal Records

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend feels—and, in fairness, has campaigned—strongly on this subject. I have read the report. She will appreciate that given the timing, I am constrained in what I can say, but I would be very happy to meet her. I should have said in my initial answer that I had the privilege of meeting Ms Woodhouse last year; she described to me in great detail her experiences as a child, and their impact on her as an adult. I very much valued the time she gave for that meeting. I look forward to meeting my hon. Friend and others to discuss their views on the disclosure regime, and any submissions that they wish to make to Ministers.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Sammy Woodhouse is to be commended for her courage and fortitude. Her campaign reminds us of the complex nature of child sexual abuse and its long-lasting consequences. She makes a very important point when she says that fear of being prosecuted may prevent victims from coming forward, and that criminal records may prevent survivors from moving on with their life.

Conscious of your warning, Mr Speaker, I will not say anything about the case in hand, but I point out that my colleagues in the Scottish Government are committed to preventing and tackling child sex abuse through a range of actions. Of course, grooming is a major issue; Police Scotland has emphasised that it is important that children should not be deterred from coming forward by a fear of having broken the law, and I know that the Minister will agree. In Scotland yesterday, Police Scotland launched the Stop it Now! campaign, which aims to drive home the message that the online grooming of children and young people is illegal and causes huge harm. This is one of the many areas where we really need to drive home the message that it is illegal for adults to have sexual conversations, online or offline, with young people. Does the Minister agree with the aims of the campaign to stop online and offline grooming in Scotland, and will she pledge her support for it?

Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend makes the strongest point of all, which is that we will defeat this challenge through peer group pressure and by coming together to show what is unacceptable. The CST has already offered online material to help advise other places of worship in how to make themselves safe. But the fact is that our law enforcement cannot do this on their own. The current threat is from sudden violent extremists—people who, in minutes, can step outside their front door, grab a knife or car and wreak murder on our streets. That is not going to be spotted by a police officer on every corner, or a large intelligence service, without the support of the public, who can understand their neighbours and bring any worries they have to the attention of the correct authorities, to make sure we say, “This is not acceptable.”

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

No one who has ever visited New Zealand can fail to have been struck by not only the beauty of the country, but the warm welcome one gets from its diverse people, as the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) has said. On behalf of the Scottish National party, I wish to condemn the terrible evil we saw in New Zealand last week, and to send our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved and injured.

In Scotland, our Muslim community are a valued part of our society, as they are across the whole of the United Kingdom, but we must always be aware of the particular threat posed to them from far-right extremists. I am sure the Minister will agree that Islamophobia must be combated and condemned wherever it raises its head. Does he also agree that politicians, journalists and those in the public eye should always be cautious never to cross the line on free speech and fair comment to risk stirring up the sort of hatred and “othering” that can feed into the narrative of the far right?

There have been a growing number of incidents across the UK in recent years, and it was good to hear the Minister on the radio this morning and this afternoon saying that he is alive to that threat and will put resources into tackling it. I noticed that on the radio this morning the Muslim Council of Britain was very concerned to ensure that its community should get the same sort of funding as the Jewish community has received to protect its places of worship against attack, and I was pleased to hear the Minister say on the radio that protective security tacks with the threat present. It seems that he does recognise the threat, but will he confirm that he will be meeting the MCB to discuss its requests and to look at directing funds where needed?

Finally, we have seen incidents where far-right extremists have tried to intimidate and silence Members of this House who have called them out for their hate. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), in particular, has suffered at the hands of far-right extremists recently. I know that the Government have been very sympathetic about that, but does the Minister agree that all of us, across this House, must stand united with our colleagues against the threat from the far right?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. and learned Lady makes some good points. On her point about Islamophobia, I have publicly spoken out for many years about the fact that Islamophobia exists. It exists across our communities, in all our political parties and in the communities we represent; it exists throughout Europe, not just in the UK, and we have to tackle it.

If you want a good lesson on how to tackle intolerance, Mr Speaker, I should say that one of the early successful policies of the SNP was on dealing with anti-sectarianism. The SNP recognised in Scotland that this starts with sectarianism and it grows into violent extremism. I have to commend the SNP for what it did all those years ago on that, taking strong steps, certainly among the football community, to stamp it out. That is why, in the end, we have to focus upstream. We must focus in the communities and say what is not acceptable. We must embrace policies such as Prevent to make sure that everyone realises that this is ultimately about safeguarding.

On the issue relating to the community trust, the hon. and learned Lady is right. We will direct our funds as the threat changes, and we are completely open to learning every day from the attacks and plots we see, either here or abroad. We shall direct this in that way. My colleagues in government regularly speak to a range of Muslim communities, and many of us in this House will speak to our own communities in our own constituencies.

We will sense the fear that there currently is in some of those communities as a response to the attack in New Zealand and that there was even before that, given the growing rise of Islamophobia, spread through the evils of some of these chatrooms on the internet. We must, all of us, say that that is not acceptable, and neither is intolerance aimed at other people in other discourse around the world, be it in respect of Unionism and nationalism, or Brexit and remain. Intolerance is where this starts as a small seed, and it grows into hate.

Shamima Begum and Other Cases

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The first point that my right hon. and learned Friend raised was on citizenship. Again, to make it clear, under international law it would clearly not be possible for the British state to remove British citizenship from anyone unless the Home Secretary who is making that decision is satisfied, based on expert advice, that that individual will not be left stateless, so he is right to make that point about international law.

On the security implications that my right hon. and learned Friend asked about, clearly there is a balance that needs to be met. The primary objective should be the safety and security of all those who live in the United Kingdom. That should be the overriding concern, based on expert advice and expert intelligence about what is necessary to protect British citizens. There is a case for more co-operation with our international partners because, as I mentioned earlier, they face many similar challenges. It is something that I discuss regularly, especially with our European partners—I discussed it just last week in Brussels with some of them—and that we are trying to get better co-ordination on so we can better manage some of the joint threats that we face.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Save the Children said that the death of this innocent, newborn baby was an “avoidable tragedy”, and I still have not heard any satisfactory explanation from the Home Secretary as to why the Foreign Secretary said that it would be too dangerous to have brought this baby to safety, when many journalists have visited the camp that the child was in on numerous occasions. I also gently say to the Home Secretary that I am sure that some of these women who were “married” to jihadi fighters did not have much choice in the decision about whether to have children or not. I do not think those fighters were too interested in a woman’s right to withhold consent to sex, never mind women’s reproductive rights.

Last time I raised this matter, the Home Secretary was very stung by my criticism and suggestion that revoking Ms Begum’s citizenship might have been contrary to law, but in the meantime, many other lawyers, in addition to the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), have pointed out that the basis of his decision is questionable, because it seems quite clear that Ms Begum has no right to Bangladeshi citizenship. There are claims that the Home Secretary did not consult either the Attorney General or the Solicitor General before making his decision—something that could leave him vulnerable in the event of a legal challenge. Will he tell us whether these claims are accurate, and will he refrain from retreating behind the argument that the case is sub judice, as you have already explained to him, Mr Speaker, that that is not the case?

Other countries, including the Republic of Ireland, that are faced with this situation are not depriving their citizens of citizenship, but are taking responsibility for citizens radicalised on their watch, rather than dumping them on poorer countries whose security arrangements are already strained to the nth degree. Finally, in the camps and hospitals of northern Syria, there are many more innocent children who are not British citizens. The Kurdish authorities need more help to deal with these families and these innocents fleeing Daesh. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with his Foreign Office counterparts in respect of that humanitarian aspect of the situation?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. and learned Lady suggests that because journalists are getting into Syria—into some of the camps—that it is perfectly safe, then, for British officials to enter. She will know, first, that that is a decision for journalists to make. She will also know that, thankfully in most cases—even in war zones—journalists have some degree of protection. If it was a British official, it would be a very different category of risk, and I know that she would recognise that.

The hon. and learned Lady also made a reference to women foreign terrorist fighters. All I would gently urge is that no one should make a judgment on the threat that a foreign terrorist fighter poses to our national security based on their gender. That would be entirely wrong.

The hon. and learned Lady has also questioned the legality of such decisions. As I have said—I am happy to repeat it—these decisions are never taken lightly and are based on both expert security advice, intelligence advice and legal advice. As to the last part of her question, the Minister for the Middle East, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), will be making a statement later in which he will cover that point.

Knife Crime

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My right hon. Friend has made a very important point. The use of body-worn cameras enables officers to use their stop-and-search powers with even greater confidence than they had before. Interestingly, the chief constable of Merseyside told us yesterday that since his officers have started using body-worn cameras, the volume of complaints about stop-and-search has decreased dramatically: I think he said that there were about seven last year. This is the point of stop-and-search. If we target it correctly and officers are stopping people when they believe that a search meets the test of being proportionate and necessary, that will not just help them to catch those who are carrying knives, but will, I hope, give confidence to communities.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for explaining why the Home Secretary is not here to answer this question, but there can be no doubt that the Home Secretary faces a massive crisis on his doorstep. We have heard repeatedly in recent weeks about how the public health approach to knife crime has worked not just in Glasgow, but across Scotland, where knife crime has greatly reduced and crimes of handling an offensive weapon have decreased by 64% over the last 10 years. The evidence speaks for itself, and the World Health Organisation has commended this approach, so I want to know why there is not more of a sense of urgency on the part of this Government about following the public health approach.

The Prime Minister’s comments that police numbers on the streets have not been a factor in this crisis have been met with significant criticism and fly in the face of what experts such as Cressida Dick have told us. By contrast, Scotland has a better record on police numbers: in 2018 in Scotland there were about 32 officers per 10,000 of population, compared with only 21 officers per 10,000 of population in England and Wales. So does the Minister agree that the Home Secretary should take immediate steps to match the ratio of police to population figures that we have in Scotland?

Knife Crime

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all his work, particularly through the serious violence taskforce, which he regularly attends. He made an important point about being led by evidence, and he pointed to the public health approach and rightly mentioned Glasgow. He also rightly highlighted the importance in a capital city of greater co-ordination. It is to ensure just that that we are working closely with the Mayor of London, local authorities and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The recent spate of murders by stabbing of children and young people across Greater London and England has shocked and horrified everyone. On behalf of the Scottish National party, I extend our deepest condolences to all those bereaved by these senseless acts of violence.

We are acutely aware of the problem of knife crime in Scotland, because until recent years it was a terrible scourge, but, as others have alluded to, as a result of a radical change of approach to the problem, the incidence of knife crime in Scotland has greatly reduced, and crimes of handling an offensive weapon decreased by 64% between 2007-08 and 2016-17. I think we all know now that this occurred because of a holistic approach that involved the creation of a violence reduction unit, initially in Glasgow and now for the whole of Scotland and funded by the Scottish Government, that treats violent crime as a public health problem and a social problem.

Scotland has also employed a whole-systems approach to young people at risk of offending that, rather than criminalising, labelling and stigmatising young people, provides early and effective interventions that keep young people out of formalised justice settings, and this includes the No Knives, Better Lives youth engagement programme.

All of this has been a huge success, which is why the Mayor of London, senior representatives of the Metropolitan police and senior representatives of the UK Government, including the Solicitor General, have all been up to Scotland in the last year to explore what lessons can be learned. The public health approach to knife crime is also advocated by the World Health Organisation. What specifically have the Home Secretary’s Government colleagues learned on their visits to Scotland? Can he tell us the precise extent of his plans to follow the Scottish model? If he is planning to do it, when is he going to do it?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. and learned Lady rightly points to Scotland and its own experience. It is important in tackling serious violence that we learn lessons from across the UK, and indeed the world—the public health approach she talked about has been tried in other countries and cities as well. I said we needed action across multiple fronts, but it is hugely important that we pursue that. It will require a consultation, because it is statutory, which is important to make sure that hon. Members and others have the opportunity to have an input, mould it and make sure it is as effective as it can be. I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the consultation, but there is a strong sense of support. The cross-party serious violence taskforce, which I referred to earlier, had a presentation on this last year where we heard from experienced people about how it can help, and it is something that we plan to pursue. I look forward to working with friends and colleagues in Scotland to see how they can help.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

It is clear that Hezbollah is an organisation that has been intimately involved in terrorist attacks and the killing of civilians, which should of course be met with unequivocal condemnation from the international community and this House. As others have said, in the 2006 war Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets, indiscriminately and at times deliberately, at civilian areas in northern Israel, killing at least 39 civilians, according to Human Rights Watch. In the conflict in Syria, we have seen Hezbollah forces fight alongside Assad’s Syrian Government groups, and we all know the terrible atrocities of which they have been guilty.

Of course, these events take place in a growing climate of antisemitism around the world, which the SNP condemns utterly and unequivocally. We entirely condemn the violent actions of Hezbollah in Israel and Syria. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Israel-Palestine situation—many of us, including myself, hold serious concerns about human rights violations in the occupied territories and the Gaza strip—and notwithstanding any concerns, they should never be used as any kind of purported justification for attacks on the people of Israel or Jewish people around the world or, indeed, for abuse against them. The SNP and the Scottish Government have consistently condemned obstacles to progress in the peace process—not only indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel but the continued expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

As others have alluded to, there was a detailed debate on the topic of the proscription—the full proscription—of Hezbollah in this House on 25 January last year. I had the benefit of reading that debate earlier today and discussing it with my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) who spoke in it. Very serious concern was raised by Members across the House about the statements and beliefs of Hezbollah as a whole, its antisemitism, and its avowed desire for the destruction of the state of Israel. As I have already said, those concerns are shared by the Scottish National party.

My only purpose in speaking today is to elicit from the Home Secretary precisely what has changed since 25 January last year when the Minister for Security and Economic Crime spoke so eloquently about the history of the proscription of the military wing. He went on to say that, although the proscription of Hezbollah in its entirety was kept under review, the Government at that stage wished to maintain a balance. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend in the debate on 25 January last year, other countries have also sought to maintain that balance, including two members of the Five Eyes and the European Union. In response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), I was not sure that the Home Secretary was able to elicit whether any other countries have changed their position.

As the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) said, it is the role of the Opposition to ask questions and to scrutinise. I am not interested in defending Hezbollah—of course I am not—and I have made my party’s condemnation of its activities crystal clear. I simply wish to elicit from the Home Secretary what specifically has led to the Government’s change of mind since 25 January 2018 so that I might better understand this decision today. I am also concerned that the Home Secretary should clarify for us what specific arrangements he has put in place to make sure that diplomatic channels are kept open—not with Hezbollah, but with the Lebanese Government and Lebanese parliamentarians—in order to maintain stability in Lebanon. I also seek from the Home Secretary a confirmation, which I am sure that he will give me, of the Government’s commitment to use their influence to help revitalise the peace process in the middle east and to find a way to break the terrible political deadlock there and start to move towards bringing an end to the conflict.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) has asked the Home Secretary about an amendment to be debated in the House later this week, requiring the Prime Minister to seek to ring-fence the rights of both UK citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK, regardless of whether the withdrawal agreement is signed. This ring-fencing has cross-party support across the House, including from many Government Back Benchers. What possible reason could there be for the Home Secretary not to recommend to the Prime Minister that the Government accept that amendment?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. and learned Lady will know that the Prime Minister is not able to speak on behalf of the EU; she can speak only on behalf of the UK. She is not able to force the EU to ring-fence anything—that is ultimately a decision for the EU. What the UK can do, though, is unilaterally guarantee the rights of all EU citizens, regardless of whether there is a deal or no deal, and that is exactly what we are doing.

[Joanna Cherry]

Well of course, what the Prime Minister is being asked to do is to seek an agreement from the EU, not to force the EU. However, if the Government are not prepared to do that, will they do this? The British in Europe campaign group told the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill Committee last week that the best alternative to bilateral ring-fencing was to put the settled status qualifying criteria in the Bill along with a clear statement of strong settled status rights. That would be best practice and would give other countries in the European Union significant encouragement to reciprocate. Will the Home Secretary commit to that as a fall-back position?

[Sajid Javid]

I absolutely share the hon. and learned Lady’s concerns. It might be useful to point out that we can guarantee people’s rights through secondary legislation, which would be much more straightforward and easier, and that is our plan. As we have set out, we absolutely will be guaranteeing the rights of all EU citizens, regardless of deal or no deal, and when that comes to this House, hopefully through secondary legislation, I hope that hon. Members will support it.

Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for securing this debate on this important anniversary.

No family should ever have to go through what the Lawrence family went through, by which I mean not just the racist murder of their son but the way in which the police responded—or failed to respond properly for many years—to the crime. I am privileged to work alongside Baroness Lawrence on the Joint Committee on Human Rights. To prepare for today’s debate, I read the evidence she gave earlier this month to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry. Other Members have referred to it already, but I believe that the things she had to say should be very important takeaways for us and that they are matters on which the Minister should consider taking action.

Baroness Lawrence said that if she were writing the report today, the thing she would focus on most is education, and the second would be the importance of training the police to do their job properly. She said that unless we start educating our young people to live their best lives, things will not improve. During the course of the evidence session, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Committee, raised a point about education, saying that

“the figures show that black graduates are significantly less likely to achieve firsts or 2:1s than white graduates, even when you take account of prior attainment and A-levels and so on, and also are more likely to drop out. That sounds like a pretty big problem for universities.”

That is a problem universities need to address. If one reads Baroness Lawrence’s evidence carefully, that was the sort of thing she was getting at.

Baroness Lawrence highlighted the police’s lack of empathy at the time the crime was first being investigated—I use the term loosely, because the initial investigation was woeful. She said:

“We had just lost our son. When they came to the house, which was quite regularly, they were not interested in giving us information about how the investigation was happening. That was what we wanted to know, but it was just about the information that we were giving them.”

She also said:

“We were treated as criminals.”

There was an assumption that because Stephen was a black boy he must have been a criminal. Empathy and respect for human dignity should be at the heart of all police work, but it was not in the case of Stephen Lawrence, at least not until much later in the day and then only in the case of certain individual police officers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) made the point during the Home Affairs Committee evidence session that although the term “institutional racism” has been very helpful in making us as a society understand what went wrong in the Lawrence case, it should not be used to absolve individuals from their culpability of what went wrong. That includes individuals within the police force, as well as those who originally perpetrated the crime.

It is worth pausing to note that this was a racist crime. There seems to have been language surrounding it that fits with the language of the far right. Let there be no doubt: the far right is on the rise again in the United Kingdom, and we must very much guard against that.

I wish most strongly to pay tribute to Baroness Lawrence and Neville Lawrence for their dignity and their tenacity in their fight for justice. Tribute should also be paid to the 1997 Labour Government, who had the gumption to institute the inquiry. Often now, when we are looking at public inquiries, for example the inquiry into the Grenfell fire, we look to the broad terms of reference of the Macpherson inquiry as guidance on what is ideal.

I want to say a little about the response in Scotland to the issues that came out of the Macpherson inquiry. Shortly after the report was published, the then Scottish Executive were quick to create an action plan to take forward the relevant Macpherson recommendations in Scotland. Even now, the Scottish Government recognise that it is their responsibility to ensure that what happened to Stephen Lawrence and his family could never happen in Scotland. We must not ever be complacent about that, or assume that any Government or society has a monopoly on doing the right thing. Institutional racism can be found across our society, as can individual instances of racism.

The Scottish Government have taken on board lessons in relation to the importance of supporting the victims of crime and of fighting knife crime, which is such a scourge in our society across these islands. Over the past 20 years, and particularly the past 10 years, the Scottish Government have been at the forefront of putting the rights of victims and vulnerable witnesses at the heart of the criminal justice system. They continue to do so. The new victims taskforce has been set up, chaired by the Scottish Justice Secretary, to improve victims’ experience of the justice system.

The Scottish Government have also taken action to address hate crime. I am pleased to say that racially motivated crime in Scotland has, according to the statistics, decreased by 29% since 2011-12. In June 2017, the Scottish Government published an ambitious programme of work to tackle hate crime and build community cohesion across Scotland, and they have worked with Police Scotland to develop the data that they hold on hate crime, with a report due to be published later this year.

The Scottish Government have also worked to ensure that education plays its part in advancing equality and tackling discrimination and hate crime. Clearly, the importance of education was something that Baroness Lawrence highlighted in her evidence to the Home Affairs Committee. On 15 November 2017, a national approach to anti-bullying for Scotland’s children and young people was published. All schools are expected to develop and implement an anti-bullying policy, in line with the “Respect for All” policy, which should be reviewed and updated regularly.

At present, England and Wales, and particularly this city of London, face an enormous problem with knife crime. There have been many tragic instances of murder across this great city of London in the last year. It is well known—we have had many debates about this in the Chamber recently—that in the past, Scotland faced a terrible problem with knife crime, and that the public health approach to tackling violence advocated by the World Health Organisation, which has been adopted in Scotland, has worked greatly to reduce the incidence of knife crime in Scotland. I am absolutely delighted that so many representatives of this city—from the Met police to the Mayor to members of the British Government—have been up to Scotland to look at the public health approach to tackling violence. It really has brought amazing results in Scotland, and it is clearly effective when we look at the fact that violent crime in Scotland has decreased by 49% over the last decade.

I would not wish to be thought to be at all complacent about the position in Scotland. There are things that we could do better, and we must all work to do better. However, today’s debate is specifically about following up on the recommendations of the Macpherson report, and it is clear that there is concern throughout the Chamber that perhaps the extent to which the recommendations have been implemented has not been adequately measured, so I would like to know what the Minister is going to do about that. Will he also take a leaf out of the Scottish Government’s book in dealing with the victims of crime and tackling knife crime? Finally, will he tell us what the Government are doing to make sure that the rise of the far right across the United Kingdom does not mean a return to the sort of ghastly crime that took the young Stephen Lawrence’s life?