Oral Answers to Questions

John Spellar Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

22. What her policy is on appeals against refusals of applications for visas for short-term visits.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

Genuine visitors will always be welcome to visit the UK. Only the family visitor route currently offers a right of appeal. Subject to parliamentary approval, that will be removed by 2014.

[Mr Spellar]

That reply will be heard with very considerable concern and anger in many communities across the country. Families who are trying genuinely to have family reunions, weddings and so on are being held up. Does the Minister not recognise that the main problem is that the appeals process is jammed up because of the low level of decision making in the UK Border Agency and the stubborn refusal of managers to review that, saying that it will be sorted out in the appeals system? I have letters to that effect. Why does not the Minister address the issues and look after the community?

[Damian Green]

I am addressing precisely those issues. Clearly, the right hon. Gentleman missed the first part of the answer—genuine visitors will always be welcome to visit the UK. The current appeals process takes around eight months. Re-applying takes about 15 days, so it is quicker and easier for people to apply again. The current visit visa appeal system costs about £29 million a year to administer—money that could be much better spent on other parts of the immigration system.

Home Affairs and Justice

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We heard nothing then to defend the 5,000 officers being cut from 999 response units, from neighbourhood policing units and from emergency response units across the country. The Home Secretary is dealing in fantasy figures. She needs to think about what she has just said. If the figures she has just used were correct, no police officers would be going—no front-line staff would be being cut—everything would be hunky-dory and she would be able to do it all through the pay freeze and through the back-office cuts that she has proposed. But that is not what is happening. Instead, 16,000 police officers are going, from every corner of the country. They are being taken from the very front-line services we need. Time and again the Government told us that the front line would be protected and would not be hit, but that is not happening. She is out of touch. The Prime Minister told us:

“We won’t do anything that will reduce the amount of visible policing on our streets.”

But 5,000 police officers have gone already, and many thousands more are to go.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

This is not just about the number; it is also about the considerable experience of many of those police officers. That is especially the case in respect of the grotesque picture in the west midlands, where, under rule A19, which the Home Secretary has blithely ignored and dismissed, very experienced police officers are being dismissed. They are going on to the pension scheme—this does not fall on the west midlands account, but it sure adds on to the public finances because of the pensions. When we talk about dodgy figures, that is exactly the sort of dodgy accounting we are discussing. This is a real loss to policing in the west midlands.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we are losing some of our most experienced officers. I have spoken to officers from other places around the country who wanted to carry on working, and who had great skills and experience to contribute to the police force, but are being forced into early retirement. The evidence and research from the House of Commons Library shows that that will actually cost the taxpayer more. This approach is absolutely crazy. It is bad for communities and bad for the taxpayer.

We know now what the Prime Minister’s response to this situation is. He does not think it is a problem; cutting 999 response teams is not about emergencies or about visibility—it is not even austerity. He said that it is just “efficiency”. He calls it “efficiency” but communities across the country call it, “Out of touch, irresponsible and unfair”, because they know it is communities that are paying the price.

Immigration Queues (UK Airports)

John Spellar Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

As the hon. Lady knows perfectly well, that would require significant changes to the law going way beyond immigration policy. I gently suggest to her that all her constituents who want to go on holiday to other countries in the European Union would feel slightly short-changed if they had to wait much longer because there was a separate lane there, too.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Terminal 5 was a triumph of British construction whose reputation was seriously marred by inept management on its opening day. Now the country is spending billions on arrangements for the Olympics, brilliantly built and organised, and our international image is already being damaged by the queues being caused once again by the useless Border Agency management. Today the Minister’s main excuse seemed to be the weather at the weekend: the wrong sort of rain. When will he really get a grip?

Metal Theft

John Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that metal theft is becoming a serious issue for the UK; welcomes the Government’s announcement on introducing a cashless system and higher penalties; is concerned that the comprehensive package of measures which is needed to address this issue is not being introduced at the same time; believes that to effectively stamp out metal theft there needs to be a radical change in how the scrap metal industry is regulated; and calls on the Government to introduce a number of additional measures as a matter of urgency, including a robust licensing scheme for scrap metal dealers to replace the present registration scheme, a licence fee to fund the regulation of the licence, greater police powers to close unscrupulous scrap metal dealers in line with alcohol licensing, police authority to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by scrap metal dealers, use of photo identification and CCTV to identify sellers of scrap metal, and their vehicles, vehicle badging for mobile scrap metal dealers, and magistrates’ powers to add licence restrictions and prevent closed yards from re-opening.

First, may I express my thanks to the hon. Members for Dudley South (Chris Kelly) and for Worcester (Mr Walker) for co-sponsoring this topical Back-Bench debate and to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing Members of this House to debate this issue tonight? I also wish to mention my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), who first raised this issue back in 2010. I understand that just last night, in the other place, metal theft was once again the subject of much discussion.

Metal theft is at epidemic levels. Industry is being hard hit by daily thefts and the general public are not only horrified at the escalation and cost, but disgusted at the theft of Britain’s heritage; reports of war memorials being desecrated have shocked the nation. We have seen lifeboat stations without communications, and last month Llandough hospital in Wales had to cancel 80 operations because of cable theft. Remote rural broadband services across Britain are too frequently knocked out. The Energy Networks Association claims that there has been a 700% increase in theft from the energy networks between 2009 and 2011. The Association of Chief Police Officers conservatively puts the cost at £770 million. I believe that a lack of accurate reporting—there is no specific crime code—probably means that the true cost is higher, but Deloitte puts the figure more conservatively at between £260 million and £600 million.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Is not one of the key factors the disproportionate relationship between the value of the metal being sold and the cost of replacing it? For example, manhole covers are being sold for a few quid but the cost to Sandwell council of replacing them is £400, and it is losing 40 or 50 of them a month. A similar comparison can be made between the price of the cable that is being stolen and the disruption to travel. Should not the penalties reflect that cost rather than the value of the metal?

[Graham Jones]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and many in the House will share his view.

Foreign National Offenders

John Spellar Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Two were named in the weekend press, but they were not, in fact, the most awkward. Awkwardness is difficult to define. The two countries named were Jamaica and Nigeria, whose nationals account for most such prisoners. However, I should pay tribute to both countries’ Governments, who are considerably more co-operative now than they were. I visited Nigeria recently, where I visited a prison, part of which had been built by the British taxpayer specifically to make it easier for us to return Nigerian national prisoners to Nigeria. That is the kind of practical action we are taking.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Did not the Minister’s reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) demonstrate exactly how he is failing in this job? He is just the mouthpiece for his civil servants, who are still pumping out the same old line. However, perhaps he can help us on a couple of issues on which he did not reply to the shadow Minister. Does he have a clue where the various prisoners are or how many are in the west midlands, for example?

[Damian Green]

At this moment it is quite difficult to say where every individual in this country is, or where any sub-set of those individuals is, because they may be travelling around. We put strict reporting arrangements on all who are released—both those released by the courts and the 10% released by the UKBA. We use electronic tagging and monitor them carefully so that we know where they are. That is why, as an example, we are in touch with all 92 individuals who were released without being considered for deportation over the last two years. We are pursuing deportation for all of them, and 10 have already been removed.

UK Border Force

John Spellar Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am happy to confirm all those points. Indeed, far from doing any of those things, this Government are getting rid of the abuse of student visas by ensuring that colleges that have been bringing people in to work rather than to study can no longer do so. It is this Government who have brought in an annual limit on non-EU economic migrants.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Given the concerns about the UK Border Agency, can we be clear about why the Home Secretary did not arrange to monitor this sensitive pilot or, given her wide range of responsibilities, why the Immigration Minister did not do so? Can we also be clear what he signed up to and what he was told? Let us not wait until January for those answers. Will the Home Secretary issue a statement to that effect this week?

[Mrs May]

I have just made a statement in which I set out the timeline for when decisions were made. If the right hon. Gentleman had listened carefully, he would have heard it.