Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

Members will have heard what I said in my opening statement about the various steps that have been taken, including on countering illicit finance, dealing with the potential abuse of visas and investing through our national cyber-security strategy to counter cyber being exploited against us in so many different ways. That work continues. We also continue to work with those involved in the internet and social media on our online harms legislation, which we remain committed to. That underlines the breadth of our response.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend may be aware that I have done more than most to try to stop the return of Russia to the Council of Europe, so I recognise the enduring threat that it poses. Does he share my belief that the Russia report largely underplays the bigger picture and that there is a distinct risk to the UK through the international institutions to which we jointly belong?

[James Brokenshire]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all his work. Russia seeks to advance the sense of a state that supports the rules-based order, yet through all its other actions, we can see that there is a fundamentally different approach. I would underline his focus on the fact that we need to be clear-eyed about the threats and risks posed through multilateral organisations. I look forward to working with him and others as we continue to call that out and ensure that our interests are best reflected through those organisations in upholding the rules-based order.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The details published this morning relate to the new system beyond 1 January. However, to be clear, we will refund those who have paid the charge since 31 March, not just since the time when the Prime Minister made the announcement. We expect to bring in the new health and care visa significantly before 1 January; we are planning to have it in place before 1 October, and people applying for it will not have to pay the surcharge.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to prevent hate crimes against places of worship.

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

We are committed to protecting places of worship from hate crimes through the places of worship protected security scheme. The funding for next year, at £3.2 million, is an uplift of nearly double the amount awarded last year. A public consultation on providing greater protection from hate crime for places of worship closed on 28 June. We are reviewing the responses and will respond in due course.

[John Howell]

There is a balance to be struck between worshipping openly and being provided with adequate security. Will the Minister say what success the Government’s places of worship protective security funding scheme has had in achieving that balance?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. I can assure my hon. Friend that the places of worship protective security funding scheme has been designed so that each place of worship can apply for practical security measures that suit their individual needs, ranging from CCTV to alarm systems. This allows each place of worship to remain open and accessible for worshippers, while providing greater security. We want to ensure that this scheme listens to worshippers and their communities when seeking to achieve the balance to which he rightly refers.

Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2019

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 General Committees

[Chris Philp]

I will respond briefly to some of the points raised by the shadow Minister. I thank him for his intention not to divide the Committee and for the constructive and thoughtful tone of his remarks.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the domestic abuse Bill. It is not my policy area, but I believe that it is the intention to introduce it in the House in the extremely near future, so it will be taken forward. We have clearly had a somewhat disrupted 12 months or so, with various things impeding the passage of legislation, but the Bill is important, as he rightly says, and we are moving on with it at pace now that we have a more stable political environment.

The hon. Gentleman asked why the pilots took so long. When we are piloting a new criminal justice intervention, it is right that we do it thoughtfully, rather than in a hurry. There are examples of interventions that were rushed and not properly thought through. It is reasonable that, before we change the law, as we are doing today, we pilot a measure in a considered and thorough way. As I said, five evaluations have been conducted. He asked about the roll-out programme and, again, we do not want to rush it. We want to make sure that it is done properly in each region in turn. Getting it done in the space of 12 months or so is not an unreasonably long time.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the release of the evaluations. The evaluations are independent, and we believe that those done on behalf of MOPAC and on behalf of Humberside, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire will be published publicly. He will be able to read them in due course.

There have in the past been serious problems with the tagging contracts, which the hon. Gentleman referred to. Of course, any private sector contract, particularly in the area in question, will be monitored carefully for all the reasons he mentioned.

The hon. Gentleman asked about breach. Clearly, if someone who is given an AAMR breaches the requirement by taking the tag off or drinking when they are not supposed to, that will in the first instance be a matter for the probation service. It could escalate the matter to, for example, a magistrate who would be able to take appropriate follow-up action. The magistrate’s range of options would include another community order, a fine or, in extreme cases, imprisonment.

I completely agree, on the question of treatment, that it is critical that if someone has a serious health problem—whether that is drug or alcohol addiction or a mental health problem—we seek to treat it. AAMRs are not about treating people with serious addiction. Alcohol treatment requirements are designed to do that. However, AAMRs have a role to play with people whose drinking is problematic but falls short of addiction meeting the medical threshold requiring treatment, for which separate ATRs are in place.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The Minister makes a distinction between the AAMR and medical treatment. Is he happy that that is a robust distinction that can be upheld in practice?

[Chris Philp]

Of course, it is always for the magistrate or Crown court to decide on which side of the line a particular patient falls, but, as I have said, we shall be returning to this area in the sentencing White Paper to be published later in the year. A critical part of that will look at ways to deepen and widen treatment for people who have addiction and mental health problems. The question that my hon. Friend raised will be addressed in the White Paper and I strongly encourage him, and others with expertise of the kind he has, to contribute to the thinking about that. It is exactly the sort of question that we shall address.

I hope that I have been able to respond, briefly, to some of the questions that were raised. I once again commend the instrument to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

15. What steps she is taking to divert young people away from violent crime.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

19. What steps she is taking to divert young people away from violent crime.

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

The Government are committed to delivering on the people’s priorities by tackling violent crime. We have already invested £220 million in early intervention. Through our serious violence fund, we have committed to funding violence reduction units until 2021. We are also introducing the serious violence Bill, which will put a duty on police, councils and other agencies to prevent and reduce serious violence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who of course brings to the House his experience of representing his constituency on this important issue. We are determined to ensure that the police have the powers they need to tackle this terrible scourge. That is why, in the new serious violence Bill, a new court order will be brought forward that will make it easier for the police to stop and search known and convicted knife carriers.

[John Howell]

What is the Minister doing to protect young and vulnerable people from drugs gangs, particularly in rural areas such as mine, where they are extremely prevalent?

[Victoria Atkins]

Drug gangs, or county lines, often involve a horrific form of child criminal exploitation, and we are determined to put an end to it. One of the many ways we are seeking to do that is through further investment in the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre, which has co-ordinated enforcement action across the country, resulting in more than 2,500 arrests and the safeguarding of more than 3,000 vulnerable people.

Release Under Investigation

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the use of release under investigation.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful to all Members who have come along to this debate about a dangerous situation that has arisen in our justice system—a situation that poses a threat to both victims of crime and those who stand accused of committing them. I speak, of course, about the use of release under investigation.

It is ironic that a lot of attention has been paid recently to the dangers of early release; release under investigation poses at least as many questions, if not more, but it has received far less attention from the Government and the media. Unintended consequences and austerity have combined to create a dire situation. Rather than helping serve justice, RUI hinders justice and puts victims of crime in danger. It is creating a situation in which justice delayed is becoming justice denied. However, there are some straightforward solutions, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response and reaction to them. I will start by explaining the current use of release under investigation and outlining the problems surrounding it for victims and suspects. I will then outline suggestions by the Law Society and the Bar Council for improvements in the system.

The first important point to make is that being released under investigation is different from being released on police bail. When a person is released on bail, they are subject to certain conditions. For instance, they may be required to live at a particular address, not to contact certain people, to give in their passport so they cannot leave the UK, or to report to a police station at an agreed time—perhaps once a week. With release under investigation, the situation is dramatically different. The accused is released with no time limit—it could be for weeks, months or years—and is not subject to any conditions at all. That means the accused is free to contact anyone, including their alleged victim, and to go anywhere, including leaving the UK. It also means that those who are falsely accused can be left in a state of limbo for years, not knowing whether they will stand trial.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am listening intently to the hon. Gentleman. In the Thames valley, the number of people on police bail dropped to 379 in 2018, while the number on RUI increased to more than 11,000. Police bail just is not being followed. Does he share my concerns about that?

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I will come to that point later. The use of police bail has dropped dramatically, and the use of RUI has increased exponentially. That is partly because police bail is out of date, but I will come to that.

As I said, justice delayed becomes justice denied. Before we consider all the implications of those stark facts, let me draw attention to the huge increase in the use of release under investigation. All evidence suggests that the use of RUI has expanded massively since changes to bail introduced by the Policing and Crime Act 2017. In London, for instance, 67,838 people were released on bail in 2016-17. In 2017-18, that number fell to 9,881, yet the number of people released under investigation in the same period was 46,674. That indicates that RUI is being used to replace bail. The checks and balances of the bail system are being swept away by a system that has neither.

The picture is incomplete, because only 20 of the 44 police forces in England and Wales have released data on RUI. However, despite the patchy data, a clear pattern emerges. For instance, in Nottinghamshire, the Thames valley and Cheshire, as in London, the number of people on bail has plummeted, while the number released under investigation has skyrocketed. Worryingly, the Bar Council estimates that the number of offenders suspected of violence against people or of sex offences who are released under investigation has risen from 1,300 in 2016 to 27,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

The Minister will already have got the feeling from the debate that there is unanimity on both sides of the House on this issue. I will not diverge from that. I understand that the Government are undertaking a review of this area. We want the Minister to take up the issues we are raising today as part of that and to make sure that we are heard.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) said, we need a system that is proportionate. Just from the figures for the Thames Valley, it is clear that the use of RUI is not proportionate. The number of people released on bail between 2016 and 2017 was 13,768. However, in 2017-18 that fell to 379 people, and the number released under investigation was 11,053. What is happening within the police service is completely disproportionate.

In case the Minister has the impression that we are alone in raising this issue, we are not. It has been put forward strongly by the Bar Council and the Law Society, and by the Association of Chief Police Officers in its guidelines on how RUI should be brought into operation. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) has gone into great detail about it, so I will not do that.

While there is clearly an issue of justice denied, the major issue seems to be the victims being deprived of their rights. As we have heard, there is no ability to impose orders to keep people away from the houses of those they are accused of performing some disadvantage to. The imposition of those orders, alongside general conditions, is a major feature of the bail system that does not exist in RUI. There is no ability to place conditions on a suspect who has been released under investigation; it simply does not occur. That has an enormous impact on the lives of the victims. It is not just the people who have committed the crime who are left languishing for ages, wondering what on earth is going to happen. Victims are left not knowing what is going to happen with the person who has been accused of doing them harm. We need to make sure that proper conditions are imposed. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned the need to make RUI proportionate, and that, above all, seems to me to be something that can help.

I finish with a quotation about the use of RUI:

“in reality, it has made the situation far worse”.

It goes on:

“Not only are people released under investigation for longer than they were kept on police bail, but the absence of proper scrutiny means police do not keep suspects updated as to the progress of an investigation.”

Everyone in the criminal justice system is a loser from that—from police officers to victims and the people alleged to have committed the crime. Defence lawyers are also victims of it, and my conclusion is that RUI has been a dismal failure.

[Sir Robert Neill]

There is another problem with the notification procedure. The single letter, which is sent under the current system, makes it difficult to keep tabs on people. Frequently a person has moved, making it difficult for their lawyers to keep in touch. That will then involve an application to the court for an arrest warrant, and there may be subsequent hearings and a bail application, if there is an explanation for why these things have happened. Any cost saving made by not having bail administered in the first instance is, perhaps, wiped out by the cost of extra court time for the issuing of the warrant and any proceedings thereafter. There must be a better way of dealing with that.

[John Howell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and there is another point to that: since we cannot take away people’s passports, they can go wherever they like and not be traceable. That makes a mockery of the system.

I understand why the police like RUI, since it allows them more time to gather evidence following the expiration of the timetable that they are under for pre-charge bail, but that is not a justification for continuing with a system that is now hopelessly discredited by all of us, the Law Society, the Bar Society and others. I urge the Minister to look thoroughly and carefully at this issue.

Retail Crime Prevention

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Westminster Hall

[David Hanson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue. I had not intended to refer to it in this debate, but self-evidently, in a big shopping area such as the Trafford Centre, policing and security for shoppers, particularly in the run-up to Christmas, is a critical issue, and my hon. Friend is right to raise it today.

As I said, £700 million has been lost because of customer theft alone, and that represents a 31% rise. Some £163 million has been lost via fraud and £15 million via robbery. That is the very hard end of retail crime whereby people walk into shops with shotguns and knives and engage in physical violence—attack shop staff—but also threaten and take valuable resource from shopping. A further £3.4 million has been lost via criminal damage, which can involve people vandalising shops both in the evenings and during the daytime. That is a staggering amount of resource.

The Association of Convenience Stores, which represents 22,000 small shops, estimates that there is a £246 million cost to its sector from retail crime. That is £5,300 per store. Interestingly, there is in effect a 7p crime tax on the cost of an average shop in a convenience store. The cost is being passed on to the consumer—the customer.

My purpose today is to look at three issues. The first is progress on the consultation that we secured from the Home Office earlier this year to look at shop theft generally and at serious crime. Self-evidently, we are in an election period, but, if re-elected, as a Back Bencher I will continue to raise this issue, whoever is in government after 12 December, because it is important.

Let me start with the very important point that my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) mentioned—attacks on shop staff. Today and every day, 115 retail staff will be attacked in their workplace while protecting the shopping offer on their retail premises, upholding the legislation that we in this House have passed—on solvents, knives, alcohol and tobacco—and preventing shoplifting in their stores. As my hon. Friend suggested, that is a traumatic event for members of staff. It puts pressure on their mental and physical health. It is not acceptable that 115 colleagues are attacked each day, particularly given that knives, for example, are increasingly a significant weapon on the streets. The industry itself is doing all it can to protect its staff in their workplaces by spending about £1 billion on crime prevention measures, but we are still in a position whereby we need to look at what measures we can put in place to support the staff who are upholding the legislation that we have passed in this House.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about crime prevention measures. Does he not see that there is a difference between the large shops—the Sainsbury’s and so on of this world—and the smaller shops, the small businesses, which have great difficulty in coping with the costs of retail crime? Do we not need a differentiated approach for the two?

[David Hanson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Everybody who runs a shop wants their staff to be protected. Large multinational retailers such as Tesco, the Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Asda are caring for their staff, but everybody who runs a shop, be it a corner shop, a one-person shop, or another kind of small shop, wants their staff to be protected at work. That is particularly important when those staff are upholding the legislation that we have passed. When they are threatened by people who want to buy alcohol late at night or early in the morning, when they are threatened for refusing cigarette, solvent or knife sales and when they are threatened for taking action to try to stop shoplifters, it is imperative that we, as the society as a whole, look at what measures we can put in place to help support them.

The Co-op Group recently produced a report entitled “‘It’s not part of the job’: Violence and verbal abuse towards shop workers”. It shows clearly that violence against shop staff has long-term consequences for them and their communities. I know the Minister will know that this is a key issue, but it is one that we need to raise, recognise, and highlight, and we need to give a commitment to those staff on the ground to ensure that they are protected as a whole.

USDAW, which, like my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), I am proud to be a member of—I declare my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—runs annually the Freedom from Fear campaign, and in the run-up to Christmas it will again run the Respect for Shopworkers campaign. Of the 6,725 shop workers surveyed by USDAW in the past year, 64% faced verbal abuse at work, 40% were threatened by a customer, and 280, on average, were assaulted every day. That is not acceptable.

I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who previously dealt with this issue. We raised it during proceedings on the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. We tabled amendments and called for action in the form of a review of attacks on shop staff. The then Minister agreed to that review during a roundtable meeting with the Co-op, USDAW and other trade unions, the British Retail Consortium, the Association of Convenience Stores and the National Federation of Retail Newsagents. That review has been undertaken; it has taken evidence. There have been an awful lot of consultation responses. The previous Minister promised to respond to that evidence in the course of November. It is now November, so I wanted to put that on the record and get some feedback from the current Minister as to where we are with that action. We are in a politically divisive time, but I hope the Minister and his team see this as an important issue on which we can have cross-party co-operation. If he can tell us what he intends to do, if the Government are re-elected, that would be welcome. I know what I would like to do if Labour is elected as the next Government—we would take action—but it is important that we discuss these issues today.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.

It is typical of the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) to approach this subject in the way that he has; he has stressed the need for cross-party action. I am not anticipating—unusually—that he and I will be returned here at the general election, but if we are then I would very much like to work with him on sorting out some of the issues that he has raised, and I praise him for securing this debate.

Going shopping should be a pleasure; it should be full of the excitement of trying to find a bargain or being able to negotiate with a shop owner, and I do not think we should do anything that takes away that pleasure. Whatever we do should be seen within that context.

The point that I made in my intervention earlier is crucial. The measures that we can suggest as the solution for companies of the size of Tesco or Waitrose will be completely different to the measures that we can suggest for smaller businesses. In my constituency, although we have a Waitrose and a Tesco, we also have a vast array of smaller businesses. In fact, the majority of the businesses in the high streets in both Henley and Thame are small shops, many of them family-owned, and they are my greatest concern in how we tackle this issue. I am not questioning anything that the right hon. Gentleman has said today, but I am merely pointing out that we need to consider the best approach.

For example, if we consider some of the suggestions that have been made, such as using CCTV or some of the other more developed techniques to control retail crime, we see that they are quite expensive for small and medium-sized businesses. I do not think that a strategy that just takes the whole of the retail sector and applies solutions right across the board is at all appropriate for smaller companies.

We all know, and the right hon. Gentleman made this point very acutely, that shoplifting affects the productivity and competitiveness of smaller shops. A few years ago, a study showed that even the smallest amount of shoplifting can have a major impact on the profitability of these shops. The effect is much greater than the percentage suggests, and that is particularly so in smaller shops where the margins are tighter. That is where we need to concentrate on tackling this crime.

I want to highlight several other issues. It could be said that credit card fraud is a problem just for the credit card companies, but it is not; it is also a problem for small and medium-sized retailers, and a much more joined-up approach to tackle that is essential. Allied with that is the use of mobile payment technologies. I know there are huge benefits to mobile payment technologies, and I acknowledge that I have taken advantage of those benefits in my own shopping, but we have to take a firm line in mitigating the risks of mobile payment technologies when it comes to the proposed solutions.

The points that have been raised about attacks on staff and shoppers are valid. We must do everything we can to protect those individuals. I have no experience of being attacked while out shopping, and I would like to keep it that way. I would like that not only for me, but for everyone who goes shopping. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, drug-related cultures have a keen impact on this issue, and that ties in with the statement he made about attacks on shops to get alcohol and cigarettes. The two are often linked, and we need to tackle them together to sort them out.

My final point is that it is despicable that anyone should target charity shops, which exist for charitable purposes, for theft. We should try to do anything we can to help them. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to take forward a cross-party approach to the issue, then I am in. I am happy to work with him. He is a colleague of mine on the Justice Committee, so we have worked together enormously on these matters, including some of the justice issues he raised in his speech. I thank him for bringing this debate to the House.

Tier 5 Religious Worker Visas

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. It was also a pleasure to hear the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) introduce the debate. I wish to discuss some points that this debate generates.

The hon. Gentleman set out the background issues very clearly. As he pointed out and as the letter from the Catholic Church clearly points out, the debate is held in the context of the supply of priests, particularly in the summer, and allowing the laity to continue to attend mass. So there are two issues at stake: the laity attending mass and the priests being allowed a holiday. I am all for priests being allowed a holiday, just as I am all for MPs being allowed a holiday. As an aside, when I first came into this House, a very senior Member said to me, “The person you should acquaint yourself with to get the right sort of status is the suffragan bishop.” Members can interpret that as they wish. Whether the popularity of MPs and suffragan bishops has taken the same turn is something I will leave for others to decide.

We have heard about a change whereby visiting priests are required to apply under tier 2 rather than under tier 5, and that is producing problems, as the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen) illustrated, as well as costs for various communities. There are also English language burdens they have to suffer and a little more red tape than under the current scheme. However, I do not think the problem is widely shared among all religious communities. The hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) nods. I will illustrate how it is not the case in some communities.

I accept that it is a case for the Catholic Church and for many others, but we live in a world where it is very difficult for anyone to recruit priests. Although this is perhaps the subject of an additional debate on another occasion, I point out that Anglicans are in a much better position because they have admitted women as priests. They therefore have an enormous supply of priests who are available and ministering. Whether the Catholic Church wants to take up my suggestion is a matter for it to decide and I will not interfere.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I am sitting here as a Catholic utterly stunned by what the hon. Gentleman suggests. He is here in Westminster Hall suggesting that the Catholic Church should change its policies because of what he perceives to be an issue and because of the actions of the Government. Honestly?

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. I know it is tempting to have a wider debate, but will Members, including Mr Howell, focus on the motion before us?

[John Howell]

Thank you, Mr Gapes. To respond briefly, I was not suggesting that; I was leaving it to the Catholic Church to decide. As I said, we can debate that issue on a separate occasion, but I think my point is a valid one.

I made inquiries in the Anglican Church about whether it has this problem. The answer was no, it does not have this problem, for a number of reasons. First, there is a supply of Anglican women priests, so the supply issue is taken care of. Secondly, Anglican ministries are organised increasingly in teams, so someone is always around; because all the members of the team do not take their holiday at the same time, someone in the team is always available to cover for others in the ministry. It is important to bear that in mind.

[Carol Monaghan]

The Catholic Church organises in teams as well, but the smaller groups within the archdiocese have priests who are already stretched to the absolute limit. When one takes a well-earned break, the others are simply asked to do even more. For them just to pick up the slack, as suggested, is unsustainable.

[John Howell]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but I return to mine: we live in a time when it is very difficult to get enough people to come forward for the priesthood of whichever denomination.

[David Linden]

The hon. Gentleman will realise that in my speech I quoted the Very Reverend Dr Susan Brown, who is both a woman and a member of the Church of Scotland, which permits female clergy. If the Church of Scotland, which is not the Catholic Church, acknowledges that this is a problem and one not specifically related to gender, does that not drive a coach and horses through his argument?

[John Howell]

I am tempted to say that if it is not just a Catholic problem, perhaps it is a Scottish problem.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s argument. Does he accept that the issue that we should be debating is whether the changes are right in principle? They might not affect every single religious grouping to the same degree, but the question that we parliamentarians should talk about is whether the changes are right in principle.

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[John Howell]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention, but I do not see the two as different; I see them as all part of the same problem. I will go back to my comments on the Anglican Church.

[Valerie Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time in allowing us to intervene. I am a Roman Catholic, but I speak on behalf not just of that Church but of the religion directly affected by the changes, which is the Sikh religion. He is right when he talks about the Church of England, but that is exactly it: it is the Church of England; many of the others are international religions and therefore need religious workers to come here. More to the point, does he not agree with having an interchange of people of different faiths coming to this country, whether of the Catholic Church or of any other religion? Does it not mean that we are able to look beyond our shores, therefore helping international relations, and not only understanding each of our own religions here but understanding them internationally?

[John Howell]

I am happy to refer to the Church of England as part of the Anglican Communion, which is a worldwide organisation that exists in so many countries that one might have thought that if there were a problem, it too would experience exactly the same problem, because there are exchanges of people between different countries, dioceses and parishes.

I will take my glasses off to read what Christian Concern said, because it is in quite small print. It states that

“it is possible to enter the UK as a ‘business visitor’ to undertake some preaching…provided the person’s base is abroad”.

That is the basis on which the exchange of Anglican personnel takes place; it is not that the Anglicans do not invite colleagues from the Anglican Communion to come over to preach in their churches. I have been to many services at which the preacher has come from a country overseas. We need to ensure that we do not get two things confused: the restrictions on the priesthood, which I know exist, for whatever reason; and the changes to the immigration system.

Last, I mention my close contacts with the Jewish community. I appreciate, from conversations beforehand with the hon. Member for Glasgow East, that his view is that the Jewish community in Scotland has similar problems. However, I asked my Jewish colleagues exactly where the problem was likely to occur in the Jewish community, and most if not all of those I questioned did not see this as a problem for them. Again, we have to go back to this being a much more complex question than simply one of visas.

I offer those reasons up as a view on the issue and to widen the debate.

Online Homophobia

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker.

I may not be gay, but I have an intense feeling of sympathy with the human rights of individuals, and what this petition does is strike a blow for the human rights of individuals. We have heard the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) describe the enormous scale of this problem, and we have heard about some of the areas in which it occurs. I thank him for exposing the full extent of this activity.

The petition suggests that there should be a separate offence for homophobia, and I can see the logic of that and why people might want it, but this is part of a much bigger picture, and we need to see it in the context of that bigger picture to be able to decide what to do about it.

There have been references already to the work of the Law Commission in looking at this matter, and I think we are expecting a report from the Law Commission in 2020 on hate crime and how it has developed. I have a lot of time for the work of the Law Commission; it is generally very thorough and very detailed, and we should take account of exactly what it says. However, I think that the distinction that is being made between online and offline, when it comes to dealing with the sexual orientation of individuals, is in some ways a bit misleading. It is absolutely essential that we stamp out the rigidity in how people look at the sexual orientation of individuals, and we do that both offline and online.

There is something special, though, about online abuse—it is so utterly cowardly. It is so utterly cowardly that the people who perpetrate it do not need to disclose, half the time, who they are or what their views are. We can see the point that they want to make, and it is exactly the same point that we see in other areas where hate crime is endemic—examples include Islamophobia and antisemitism. I have spent quite a bit of my career looking at what is happening in those two areas.

I, for one, welcome the creation of the national online hate crime hub, because it has the potential to bring in specialist police officers who can be used to really root this problem out. The problem with online activities is that we need specialists in order to be able to get to the bottom of it. Bringing in specialist police officers and staff is a good way to take this forward.

The hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned the important aspect of the mental health effect of all of this on those who suffer from hate crimes. That is a very serious problem, and unless we focus on the experience of those who suffer these things, we will miss a great point about what we should aim to achieve.

I have said many times in this Chamber that, given my interest in human rights, I am proud to be a member of the Council of Europe. It will be no surprise to hon. Members that the Council is fully supportive of the actions we want to take. It stands up for the human rights of every individual. It is important to make that point this week, because, only last week, the Council made the fundamental mistake of readmitting Russia. If we look at the way that gay people have been treated in Chechnya, we see the hatred with which they have been singled out in that part of the country. At the Council, we tabled 230 amendments, which may have been a bit excessive, but it made our point forcefully. I was pleased that one of our amendments called for an apology for what has gone on in Chechnya and for a cessation of those activities.

The Council has also taken on board how to deal with this problem more generally. It has a questionnaire on existing measures and is highlighting examples of good practice—if anyone is interested, they can see it online. I suppose it is ironic that the internet can facilitate the good practice that exposes the bad practice, but that is the nature of things.

We are dealing with challenges to individual’s privacy, including whether they want to come out or not. That is a decision for them to make. The more we can do to promote a good check on online activities, to focus on this issue, to ensure that all of us understand what is happening and to take action against it, the healthier we will be.

I have taken the time that you allotted me at the start of the debate, Mr Walker. I am pleased to have done so, because this is an important subject, not only for gay people but for all of us, and discussing it allows us to show our common humanity with others and our support for the protection of their human rights.

Modern Slavery Act: Independent Review

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Thank you, Mrs Main; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I will raise the situation of modern slavery in Nigeria, which the team should look at as an example of how the Modern Slavery Act is working. The attack on modern slavery is an international phenomenon, and we lead the world in setting the standards.

I mention Nigeria because I am the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Nigeria, so I happen to know the country and what is going on there very well. As a bit of background, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. By the middle of the decade, it will have in the region of 400 million people. It also has the largest number of people in modern slavery in Africa. Examples include women who are tricked into migrating for non-existent jobs and then left to work in brothels or forced to work for no wages and with no legal immigration status whatever.

It is not just women who are affected; the number of children affected is enormous. Some are forced to work as street vendors or beggars. Boys are forced to work in mines, stone quarries and domestic service. Nigeria has just under 1 million people who are trapped in modern slavery. It is an enormous number, which accounts for around 17% of the people trapped in modern slavery in Africa, where the total figure comes to around 7 million or 8 million people. That is an enormous number; we are not even the tip of the iceberg in this country.

The Nigerian Government like what they see in what we do. We are helping to tackle the problem of modern slavery by using the Department for International Development budget in a number of ways. For example, the work with non-governmental organisations uses victims who have been rescued from modern slavery as good examples. Those victims talk to people about how evil it is and about how they can avoid getting trapped in it. That is such a powerful way of getting the message across, because those victims have actually suffered as a result of modern slavery, and such outreach goes down extremely well.

The British Government have taken a stance, putting about £16 million into Nigeria to help with this issue. That provides a number of bits of background. It is particularly concentrated in a place called Edo State, which sits at the crossroads of the people traffickers. I could go on and on about the people traffickers, but I will not.

On my last visit to Nigeria, I took a brief to tackle modern slavery with the Nigerian Government, and one of the companies I went to see was Unilever. Unilever acts in a number of sectors where one would expect modern slavery to exist—broadly, in the agricultural sector. I had a long chat with its representatives and saw the NGOs they were working with. It was a fantastic experience, because Unilever in Nigeria has eliminated modern slavery from not just its own activities but its entire supply chain. That has taken a big effort, so it is worth looking at that as an example of how to go about things.

One of the great joys for me was talking to the NGOs that work in this area and that have helped to eradicate modern slavery. They, too, used people who had suffered to get the message across, which is a brilliant thing to have done. When I go back, I hope I will be able to capitalise on that. I hope Unilever’s example has spread, because the company found not only that eradicating modern slavery was a great thing to do, but that being able to tell people that it no longer carried on in that way gave it an enormous competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Gender Pay Gap

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

It starts much earlier than that. We must give girls the confidence to carry on with science, technology, engineering and maths in school. That is why we are doing so much work to ensure that girls are encouraged to continue studying those subjects. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to point to industries such as engineering. In fairness, many businesses in those very male-dominated industries are beginning to get more women in at the lower end of the pipeline, but this will take time and, as I have said, I want to bring business with us rather than dictate from on high how society should view female employees. This is as much about cultural shift as it is about structures and legislation.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will the Minister look at the situation at Christ Church, Oxford, where the dean has been suspended, allegedly for trying to introduce equal pay for men and women?