Elder Abuse

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend kindly for giving way; he is being very generous. He is portraying this as a British problem, but does he agree that it is not just a British problem? The World Health Organisation has published material that shows that this is happening all around the world. It is a generational problem that we have to deal with, as he rightly points out.

[Giles Watling]

I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point that this happens all over the world, but we must clean up our own act first and make sure that we are far ahead of the game, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Where we lead, others follow.

Drugs Policy

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on securing the debate. I recently went out with the police force in my constituency, and one of the first things we did was go to an accommodation block for young people, where we tested their rooms for drugs. The police had swabs that they pushed along surfaces in the whole block, and under examination they revealed whether the young people had taken drugs. It was not the first time those rooms had been tested. Many of the people had been tested before and many had come up positive before. This was retesting.

Members might ask why, if those young people had been caught once, they did not do something different the next time, but that is part of the problem. The police took the view that it was not something that needed to be enforced in law. They took the view that there was no point in making criminals out of these young people. The real check on what should happen to the young people was not taken by the police; it was taken by the people who run the building. If it was a small amount of drugs that was showing up, they would have a word with the young people and tell them that this was not encouraged. If there was repeatedly a large amount, they would lose their accommodation. That, more than anything, was a frightening prospect for many of those people, who had found the accommodation quite late. It provided them with a lot of security.

There is a real distinction between the policy that the Government have set out and are pursuing and the policy that the police are pursuing at the same time, and those two policies cannot live together. We cannot have people saying one thing and the other people, who are supposed to be a part of the organisation that delivers it, doing something completely different. The Government need to recognise what is actually happening on the ground, because the police are not implementing legislation in the way the Government think they are. They are doing that with a greater spirit of openness about what is good for those young people in the community, and I encourage the Minister to look at that carefully.

British Citizenship Fees: Children

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered fees for registering children as British citizens.

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I trust that you are feeling suitably refreshed after the summer recess. What better way to start the new term than by seeking to ensure that all children entitled to British citizenship can access it and not be prevented from doing so by an exorbitant Home Office fee?

I thank colleagues from the different political parties who supported the debate application, the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, and everyone who has come along to support it. I also thank the 69 MPs, from every political party in the House of Commons, who have signed early-day motion 1262. Finally, I thank all the campaigning organisations that have been working incredibly hard, including the Children’s Society, Coram Children’s Legal Centre, Let Us Learn, the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens—PRCBC—and Amnesty International.

What we all seek is utterly reasonable and a very modest proposal. All we are asking the Home Office to do is to put in place a charging regime for registering children as British citizens that is fair and that allows them to access their right to citizenship, rather than one that leaves them to seek various forms of costly and precarious immigration status and sometimes with no status at all.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman may have seen that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has announced that he has asked for a review. Does the hon. Gentleman have an idea of what might come of that?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I hope good things come of the review, but I suspect that the Minister will be in a better position to provide us with answers.

We seek a system that reflects what Parliament intended when it passed the British Nationality Act 1981—that is, a system that makes it easy for kids with the requisite close connections to Britain to exercise their right to British citizenship, not one that makes money out of them by charging what the Home Secretary himself has described as a “huge” sum of money in order to fund other Home Office work. That is the case in a nutshell. In the remainder of my contribution, I plan to look at what Parliament intended for these children when it passed the legislation in 1981 and then to make the case that what the Home Office has put in place undermines rather than implements those intentions.

In 1983, Parliament scrapped the laws that meant that being born in the United Kingdom was in itself enough to make a person British. As well as being born in Britain, a person now also needs to have a parent who is settled or a UK citizen at the time of their birth. That was an understandable step. Many countries, although not all, have done the same. In a world in which people can live in several countries over their lifetime, place of birth is not necessarily the best way to identify a person’s true home country—the country that the person is most closely connected to and that should take them under its wing. However, in taking that step, Parliament was careful and mindful of the fact that it did not want to leave significant numbers of children for whom Britain is home deprived of that citizenship and the protections, security and stability that the anchor of citizenship can provide, which is precisely why it enacted provisions on registration.

British-born kids who were not automatically British at birth are allowed to register as British if they lived in the UK for the first 10 years of their life; either parent settles or becomes British before the kid turns 18; or if the kid was stateless at birth and lived for five continuous years in this country. Citizenship is their right. There is no discretion for the Home Secretary, although the 1981 Act rightly retained a discretion for the Home Secretary to allow other children to register, including those who came here at an early age and are to all intents and purposes British.

We could one day have a different debate on whether the rules are precisely the right ones and whether they draw the lines in the right place, but I think nobody could disagree that this type of rule was essential. The policy reasons behind them were quite right. In ending jus soli or citizenship by birthplace alone, it was vital to ensure that the thousands of kids for whom Britain was and is home should still enjoy that citizenship. The simple fact is that, by setting exorbitant fees, the Home Office is to all intents and purposes undermining Parliament’s intentions. Too many children cannot access citizenship because the Home Office charges what the Home Secretary has acknowledged is a “huge amount” of money.

When the British Nationality Act came into force in 1983, the fee set for registration applications was £30. In today’s money, that is almost exactly £100. For a quarter of a century, the fee simply represented the administrative cost of processing an application, but from 2007 the Home Office started charging more than the administrative cost. Accelerated increases mean that we have reached the “huge amount” of just over £1,000. The Home Office estimates the cost of processing an application to be £340, so it is creaming off £672 every time a child seeks to access their entitlement to citizenship.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on securing this debate. It will come as no surprise to anybody who knows his tenacity that he managed to bag the first slot in Westminster Hall after the summer recess. I thank all Members who participated—they made thoughtful and very good contributions. I also thank the many Members, not all of whom are in the Chamber, who have taken the time to write to me and express their views. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) for his comments. He is absolutely right that people have been thoughtful in their contributions. However, he did cause some consternation on my side of the Chamber with his new beard, which has changed his appearance to such an extent that we were not quite sure who he was.

Before I respond to the specific points that have been raised, I will set out the current landscape for the fees that we charge for visa, immigration and nationality services. It is important to remind ourselves of the principles that were agreed with Parliament, and which bring significant benefits to the immigration system and everyone in the UK in the form of effective and secure border and immigration functions, reduced general taxation and economic growth.

Under the Immigration Act 2014, and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 that preceded it, Parliament approved the principle of setting fees charged for visa, immigration and nationality services to reflect the benefits that they bring to successful applicants. Until 2015, all fees that were set at above the cost of providing the service, which included the charge for children to register as British citizens, were subject to affirmative debate in both Houses of Parliament. Under the 2014 Act, Parliament approved the principle of taking a range of additional factors into account, including wider immigration system costs, the promotion of economic growth, international agreements and international comparisons.

[John Howell]

At the Council of Europe, we produced a strategy for the rights of children. It made the point that the system that had been developed for judicial hearings and activity in relation to adults was simply being imported to deal with children, and that that was fundamentally wrong. We are not the only country to do that—the whole of Europe was largely doing that. Does the Minister share that view?

[Caroline Nokes]

I will turn to the rights of children in comments that I will make in response to other Members, so I will come to my hon. Friend’s point very shortly.

The framework of charging, and in particular the principle of setting fees to reflect benefits accruing from a successful application, has enabled us to reflect the value that people get from the services that they receive, with indefinite leave to remain and citizenship rightly being the two most valuable outcomes.

Mamba: Societal Effect

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Later in my speech, I will come on to why that is the case and to what I hope will be remedies for the issue as we currently find it. This comparison with cannabis in particular is neither fair nor realistic. It is more comparable with heroin, and it is important that it is treated in the same way, so that users and people experiencing this in the town centre get the same level of help and support as those addicted to heroin.

I am keen to use this opportunity to ask the Government to undertake a number of actions on this issue. First and foremost, I am concerned about the classification of these drugs. Before the ban on psychoactive substances in 2016, these drugs were sold either over the counter or online, under a variety of brand names. They were often seen as a new version of cannabis. I am pleased that the Government have banned these drugs and other “legal highs” but I am concerned that we have not gone far enough. These drugs are incredibly dangerous, they destroy lives and they are very clearly damaging my community in Mansfield as we speak.

Mamba is highly addictive and the withdrawal symptoms of Mamba and Spice are said to be worse than coming off cocaine or heroin.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the development of a new test for detecting Mamba would be of enormous value in the fight against this drug?

[Ben Bradley]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. There do not seem to be medical interventions into Mamba in the same way as there are with other drugs. Absolutely, being able to diagnose the cause of this zombified state would be very important and could help the police and local health services.

Anecdotally I have heard from constituents who have tried to overcome their Mamba addiction by moving on to heroin, because they say that it is easier to deal with and that there is more support and more medical intervention available to help them to quit heroin than there is for Mamba, which goes to show that this drug is not comparable with cannabis. This is a hard drug.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to ensure that the immigration system facilitates the hiring of sufficient skilled migrant workers for the UK’s needs.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to ensure that the immigration system facilitates the hiring of sufficient skilled migrant workers for the UK’s needs.

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

The Government are committed to an immigration system that operates in the national interest and ensures that businesses can attract the talented migrants that they need. From 6 July, we removed all doctors’ and nurses’ posts from the yearly cap of 20,700 places, ensuring that the NHS is able to recruit the clinical staff that it needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I know that my hon. Friend will agree that it is fantastic that we will now have an opportunity—for the first time in decades—to design our own immigration system. We should take that seriously, as we are. It will be led by the White Paper, which will come out soon after the summer recess, and an immigration Bill that will make all the changes that are recommended and debated in Parliament.

[John Howell]

I am glad that doctors and nurses have been excluded from the cap on skilled workers, which will free up many additional places for other highly-skilled occupations. Will my right hon. Friend give an assessment of how these regulations have worked since they have come into force?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming the changes and for his support. It is a bit too early to give an assessment, since the changes only came into play on 6 July. Like my hon. Friend, I am confident that they will not only help to provide some of the high skills that our economy needs, but will actually go on to create jobs.

Amesbury Incident

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise this issue. There have been far too many incidents when Members have sadly supported the Russia propaganda regime, and RT is one way in which they have done so. If any Member has an ounce of common sense, they will realise—especially after this second incident—that the British public will not support any of them if they support President Putin.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The Croatian Prime Minister told me last week at the Council of Europe that the evidence that made him expel a Russian diplomat had been absolutely compelling. Will the Home Secretary ensure that the evidence that he produces will be just as compelling in this case?

[Sajid Javid]

This is an opportunity to highlight just how seriously we take evidence and the facts. Already our world-leading scientists have been involved in the identification of the nerve agent in this incident, and that is exactly how we will proceed. As we gather that evidence, of course we will discuss it with our international allies.

Medicinal Cannabis

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

As I was at pains to point out in my opening remarks, cannabis-based Sativex is prescribed in the UK because there is a proven case for its safety and efficacy. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like me, will not want to have the market full of unregulated or untested products if we do not know their long-term impact. We have to proceed with some sense of responsibility and get the detail right. We have shown at the Home Office that we are prepared to be flexible on these issues out of compassion for exceptional cases.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

When will the commission start work, how will it operate, and how will it speed up the process of delivering these drugs?

[Mr Hurd]

We have only announced it today. I have only just asked Dame Sally Davies to take forward this important work. There is a lot of detail to be filled in, in consultation with her and others. We will return to the House to fill in some of the detail that my hon. Friend asks for.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

John Howell Excerpts

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

[Sajid Javid]

The Cabinet Office is the Department responsible for overseeing elections and looking at allegations of that type. I know that it is taking this issue seriously. Alongside my Department, it is looking at intelligence and other information it is receiving. The two Departments are working closely together on this issue. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are taking it very seriously indeed.

It is because of hostile state activity that the Bill provides new powers to stop, question, search and detain people at ports, airports and the Northern Ireland border to determine whether they are spies or engaged in other types of hostile state activity. If it is confirmed that someone is a spy, they could be refused entry, deported or have other action taken against them. Those powers will of course be subject to strict safeguards and robust oversight to assure their proper use at all times.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this is also about reducing the risk to the UK’s interests overseas from terrorism, as is the Contest strategy?

[Sajid Javid]

Yes, I can confirm that. The powers in the Bill are designed to better protect us against all types of terrorist threats, including those from overseas, and against hostile state activity.

The other provisions in the Bill are about ensuring that we can respond more effectively to the changing terrorist threat. Part of that is arresting, prosecuting and convicting terrorists and imprisoning them for longer, as well as more rigorous management of those terrorists following their release from custody to prevent reoffending. The Bill will enable us to do all those things, in part by closing gaps in a number of existing terrorism offences.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Since this is the first time that I have seen you since the weekend, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I start by congratulating you on your damehood? I am sure that it is much deserved.

The Bill follows up on the 2017 Queen’s Speech and reviews our approach to counter-terrorism. Its specific purpose is to amend certain terrorism offences to update them for the digital age, to reflect contemporary patterns of radicalisation and to close gaps. I will comment first on the potential for the prison system to add to radicalisation. I am a member of the Justice Committee, and we have never made a prison visit without raising the question of the radicalisation of prisoners, which is everywhere in the prison system. The prison officers we speak to are trying their best to deal with it, but there is great difference in the levels of success. The right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was right to refer to the issue, which we ought to be taking seriously and considering carefully to ensure that everything is taken into account.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend knows that the Bill contains provisions to lengthen both the period that prisoners serve and the length of sentence for certain terrorist offences. Is he worried that that will mean that terrorists will serve more time in prison and have more time to radicalise other prisoners?

[John Howell]

I thank my hon. Friend. In fact, in my notes for this debate I have written next to my previous point “so they will be more radicalised by spending more time in prison.” By extending prison sentences, we run the risk that prisoners will be more susceptible to the influences that will affect the radicalisation process. We need to address that matter in total from the beginning.

I was pleased to be able to intervene on the Home Secretary to get him to confirm that the Bill aims to reduce the risk from terrorism to the UK’s interests overseas. That fits in with the Contest strategy, to which the explanatory notes refer. I point to the UK’s enormous commercial interests in many parts of the world, including the middle east and Israel, that are under threat from terrorist activity. Those in Israel are under particular threat of terrorism from Lebanon. As we have discussed on many occasions, Hezbollah has long insisted that its military and non-military activities are indivisible. At the al-Quds Day rally this weekend, we saw the waving of flags of the alleged non-military wing of Hezbollah, but Hezbollah in its entirety meets the test for full proscription, which would then make it subject to the Bill. I wonder whether the Minister for Security and Economic Crime will refer to that in his summing up and mention whether an amendment to the Bill might proscribe the whole of Hezbollah. That would certainly send a strong message that, together with America, Canada and the Netherlands, we abhor terrorism in any form. It would also recognise that terrorist attacks on British interests overseas must be taken into account.

The Bill rightly points to the need to amend terrorist offences to update them for the digital age, as I said, and the need to then keep them updated. The reaction to terrorism is international, and if the Council of Europe convention on the prevention of terrorism is to mean anything, we need international co-operation and international action. If an individual commits a terrorist offence in a foreign country, they should be liable under UK law as if they had committed the offence in the UK. The explanatory notes refer to the Council of Europe’s convention, and I hope that this is last debate on this subject that does not mention the Council and its role in producing that convention. We are part of the Council of Europe—we were a founding member—and it plays an enormous role in sorting out such issues across Europe. Terrorism is a major subject for the Council of Europe, and during debates there I have been critical of the approach taken, for example, by the Belgian Government, who did not take the necessary steps to prevent terrorist activity on their own soil.

We can learn a lot from the international comparisons that we see at the Council of Europe, and I will provide a couple of examples. First, we could limit the finances of Daesh, which uses the internet to gain money and move it about. The Council has considered ways of preventing such movement. Secondly, the Council has considered cyber-attacks, which can have an enormous impact on the UK. A cyber-attack on an air traffic control system would cause absolute havoc, for example. I am also sure that everyone will agree with the Council of Europe’s “Terrorism: #NoHateNoFear” campaign.

In many ways, the opening paragraphs of the convention on the prevention of terrorism anticipate what is in the Bill, stating that no terrorist act can be justified by

“political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious”

considerations—there are no excuses for terrorism. Whatever the purpose behind an act of terrorism, we must ensure that we respect the rule of law, democracy and human rights, because otherwise we become just like the terrorists. That is a difficult thing for western democracies to do, but unless we do it, we are no better than the terrorists, and I hope we are considerably better than them.

We cannot do away with the values we hold dear in order to fight terrorism. The convention on the prevention of terrorism makes much of the need for international co-operation, and it encourages the public to provide factual help. I commend the Council of Europe’s excellent work to influence the sort of line we in the UK are taking in putting forward a strategy that is convincing in dealing with terrorism while having the necessary effect to make that help happen.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

This was of course a tragedy—that goes without saying—but, as was put so powerfully by so many people, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), it was also a national shame. It was a disgrace. That it could have happened in our country is unthinkable. It is a matter of shame that we could not keep those people, many of whom came to our country, safe.

We cannot change the past, and nothing that we say or do in this debate can begin to mitigate or soothe the pain suffered by so many families. It is not intended to. Our job is to focus like a laser on ensuring that justice is done, and specifically on ensuring that the inquiry is properly constituted. We have to ensure that one dreadful injustice is not replaced by another.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way.

[Alex Chalk]

No—I will in a second.

Notwithstanding the points powerfully made by the hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad), I want to pay tribute to the dignity of the community in the face of unimaginable pain. Why? Because at the time it happened, I had a child who was five—I am not unusual; many people in the Chamber will have children—and I remember reading about the case of Isaac Paulos. I cannot say how I would have responded if it had been my child, but I doubt it would have been with such dignity.

I also pay tribute to the media, who have told the stories behind the statistics. I do not know whether anyone else in the Chamber read the story of Marco and Gloria, the Italian couple in their 20s who moved to London to find work as architects. Marco’s family and friends have written a children’s book, turning what happened into a fairytale. It is a story of unbearable poignancy, and just one of many tributes, but we must always remember that these are not statistics; these are people.

[Phil Wilson in the Chair]

That, perhaps, all goes without saying. What is really important is that we add value in the debate. The conclusions drawn must have credibility and legitimacy, so we must strike the right balance, ensuring that the panel that considers these incredibly grave matters is not, on the one hand, unwieldy and slow or, on the other hand, too narrow as to lay itself open to the suggestion of having conclusions arrived at by individual whim.

There are precedents, as the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), the SNP spokesperson on justice affairs, showed. I remember the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. Its advantage, in one view, was that it considered matters quickly, between August 2003 and January 2004. However, as everyone in the Chamber remembers, when it published its findings, it had a credibility issue. We must ensure that we do not repeat that mistake.

Many in the Chamber will have spent time in the criminal courts, and we know that jury verdicts have their currency and legitimacy because juries are derived from the communities they serve. They do justice by reflecting the common sense and shared experience of people in everyday life. That ought to be the bedrock of how we go forward.

From my experience, just an appeal from a magistrates court in a relatively modest case will involve a judge and two lay assessors. That is why it is critical that the other members of the panel, which includes Mr Justice Moore-Bick, have decision-making power. They cannot simply be there to be thought of as making up the numbers; they must bring their weight of experience from the community and shared understanding. By the way, over many centuries lay people have shown themselves well able to analyse complex issues and do justice. To those people who might suggest we have simply a single judge, it is no answer to say, “Oh, it’s too complicated, too difficult, too technical.” Lay people are capable of understanding—of course they are—as long as matters are properly presented, and I am sure they will be.

Having decided on that format, we must let the tribunal get on. There must be cool, forensic analysis of the evidence so that the answers we get are valid. Whatever the consequences that flow from the inquiry—consequences there will be—they must be built on solid ground. This is our task. This is our duty. We owe the victims nothing less.

Minors Entering the UK: 1948 to 1971

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 216539 relating to people who entered the UK as minors between 1948 and 1971.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. It is also a great honour to open the debate on this important and pressing issue. To make it clear, I do so as a member of the Petitions Committee, which agreed to schedule the debate today.

I thank the petitioner, Mr Patrick Vernon, whom I had the pleasure of meeting just before the debate, and the more than 178,000 people who have signed the e-petition in just a few days. It calls for an amnesty for any minor who arrived in Britain between 1948 and 1971. Its goes into further detail and includes a link to a story published by The Guardian on 30 March about Elwaldo Romeo, a man who moved from Antigua to the UK nearly 60 years ago as a child and who has lived and worked in this country ever since. Mr Romeo received a letter from the Home Office stating that he was liable to detention as he was classified as a “person without leave.”

After Mr Romeo experienced difficulty in producing documentation to prove his identity and right to remain in the UK, he was asked to report to the Home Office every fortnight and offered help and support to return home voluntarily, according to The Guardian. He is understandably anxious that the Home Office will pay a visit to his doorstep and forcibly detain him.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

During the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, the BBC interviewed a Caribbean Prime Minister who stated that this was “more cock-up than conspiracy”. Does that not influence our decision? It was an administrative mistake that must be put right as quickly as possible.

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend is right. This is a mistake, not a conspiracy, with a well-meaning policy having been wrongly applied to people to whom it should never have been applied. I will go on to develop that point, as I am sure other right hon. and hon. Members will do.