Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Hollern Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to ensure that his Department’s immigration policies do not unfairly discriminate on the basis of (a) race and (b) nationality.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

10. What steps he is taking to ensure that his Department’s immigration policies do not unfairly discriminate on the basis of (a) race and (b) nationality.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

The Home Office is bound by the public sector equality duty to eliminate unlawful discrimination and promote good race relations. The Equality Act 2010 provides that discrimination is not unlawful if it is required by legislation or authorised by Ministers. For example, a visa regime that applies to a particular nationality constitutes discrimination, but is lawful under the Equality Act.

[Kate Hollern]

An Iranian refugee in my constituency applied for a Home Office travel document and has been refused. He was told that he must get a passport from his own country, which, as he fled that country, is almost impossible. Even to apply for a passport, he would have to agree to sign up for national service. Surely that is discrimination.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that specific issue. Although I cannot comment on individual cases, we do not wish to see anybody disadvantaged because of the individual requirements of travel documents from their country of origin. I would be very happy to work with her to see whether we can find a solution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I commend my hon. Friend for the huge amount of work he has done on tackling homelessness and rough sleeping; I saw that as Communities Secretary as well. The Government believe that no one should be criminalised for simply having nowhere to live and sleeping rough. The Government’s 2018 rough sleeping strategy committed us to reviewing the homelessness and rough sleeping legislation, including the Vagrancy Act 1824. That is what we are doing, and I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

T3. The Government have been severely complacent in preparing fire services for an emergency on the scale of Grenfell Tower. There are still hundreds of dangerous high-rise buildings, and by continuing to degrade our fire service, the Government are failing to recognise the severity of the risk. Since Grenfell, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s funding has been slashed by £3.8 million. Response times have continued to rise. Can the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that all fire and rescue services will be properly prepared for high-rise emergency incidents?

[Mr Hurd]

The Government continue to give the fire service the resources it needs against a background of falling fire numbers. We continue to monitor that in the run-in to the comprehensive spending review, working closely with the fire service. On the remediation of buildings and the urgent review of a fire safety system that had clearly failed, we continue to work closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in our consultation on that.