Child Refugees: Calais

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The number of asylum claims made in and around the area of Calais over the recent year or so is about 2,800, and there has been a significant increase, which we support and encourage. We have people who go into the camps to deliver and make very clear the message about the need to make claims quickly so that assistance can be provided.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

On our visit to The Hague last week, the Home Affairs Committee was told that 90% of migrants who enter the European Union had been able to do so because of criminal gangs. Will the Minister tell the House how many people have been prosecuted by individual countries as a result of that smuggling? The long-term solution is the proper operation of the hotspots that have been created in Italy and in Greece, and, as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said, the tracking of children before they have to make the long journey to Calais. The short-term solution is for the Minister to ring his opposite number in France to see whether a more humanitarian approach can be arrived at, because this is the fault of the French Government, who have been warned about Calais and have done nothing about it.

[James Brokenshire]

I think that is an unfair criticism. The French Government have taken significant steps to provide alternative accommodation and to see that there is information so that people are able to make their asylum claims effectively. However, the right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful and important point about the role of organised crime. The figure of about 90% that he highlighted has been confirmed by Europol, so the work we are doing with our organised immigration crime taskforce is absolutely right. By getting intelligence to Europol, we are taking action against gangs that, frankly, do not care whether these young people live or die.

Police Funding, Crime and Community Safety

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, you are known as the Back Bencher’s champion, and I hope the shadow Home Secretary will not feel I am criticising him too much, but I think that for him to have spent 35 minutes—over a quarter of the entire allocated time for this debate—on his speech is a discourtesy to Members on both sides who have come here to talk about this important issue.

I want just to say the following. My concern, and that of the Home Affairs Committee, is not so much about the settlement, because we said in our last report, published on 11 December, that the Chancellor was right to have done what he did, but that is only half the story. Our concern is over the funding formula. Of course the Policing Minister was right to look again at the formula and re-evaluate it, and we have noted the fact that that whole process ended in a shambles because of the Home Office’s failure to properly calculate the data, and it took an official in Devon and Cornwall to assess that something had gone wrong.

We published our report on 11 December. The Government’s response to this very important issue is now 13 days late. Chief constables and police and crime commissioners up and down the country have been waiting for this response, and for the consultation to begin. The fact is that unless we have the new formula, even the decisions made on the settlement will not give certainty to the various police forces in this country.

We had a letter from the Policing Minister in the middle of the last debate in which he said he was going to respond very swiftly, but there is a debate on Tuesday about the Committee’s report, by which time I hope we will have begun the consultation. Yesterday in our deliberations, five PCCs as well as Lord Wasserman gave evidence on PCCs, and they all said that none of them had been contacted by the Home Office about this critical issue. This has been mirrored in the emails we have received at the Committee office from other chief constables.

I ask the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister to ensure that when the Minister comes to wind up—I assume another half hour of this debate will be taken up with wind-ups—he should please tell us when the consultation process will begin. I hope he will use the examples we have given in our report so that there is an independent element to the consultation process. If that happens, we will get a formula that can be accepted by all the police forces in this country, and a formula that can remain in place for many years to come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We would expect no less of the right hon. Gentleman.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Since the cyber-Minister is up to the mark, may I ask him about the activities of a website called Bestvalid, which was discovered recently selling the stolen bank details of 100,000 British citizens? Can he explain, as an up-to-the-minute cyber-Minister, how it was possible for this website to carry on for six months before being closed down, and how much of the £1.9 billion that he is targeting on cybercrime will be used proactively to close down sites of this kind?

[Mr Hayes]

The right hon. Gentleman knows, because his Select Committee has drawn attention to this in the past, that it is critically important that the Government work with all other agencies, including banks and private sector organisations, and the taskforce will be missioned to do that. It may be worth saying that this is summed up by the fact that the National Police Chiefs Council has publicly signed up to

“commit our full support to the objectives and actions of the…Taskforce”

to

“work in partnership to…protect the public from becoming victims of fraud and fraud scams, maximising opportunities to stop fraudsters from operating”,

in exactly the way he recommends.

Child Refugees in Europe

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

We want to see children who are affected by this appalling crisis given help and assistance at the earliest opportunity. That is why we have committed the aid and support that we have in the region. It is also why in Calais, for example, we have been giving support to the French Government to ensure that claims can be made as quickly as possible. The French Government have set up 78 new centres away from Calais to help migrants to make their claims as quickly as possible. That way, we see people get help at the earliest chance.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Last year, 300,000 child refugees entered through Greece and 16,000 entered through Italy. The problem has been that the countries at the EU’s external border are just not given the support they need from the European Union. As a result, reception centres have not been opened up in places such as Greece. Will the Minister tell us what has happened with the deal made between the EU and Turkey, which would have provided Turkey with additional resources to try to help us to deal with this terrible crisis?

[James Brokenshire]

Work is continuing in respect of Turkey and the Government have a commitment to providing funding in support of that. The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the issue of the external border in countries such as Greece and Italy. This country has provided more support for asylum processing, in terms of experts, than any other country in the EU, and that sense of how we can support the external border is very much at the forefront of our work.

Asylum Seekers: Middlesbrough

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

Property standards are monitored under the COMPASS arrangements by three key performance indicators, to ensure that accommodation is safe, habitable and fit for purpose. Accommodation is inspected frequently by G4S, the local authority and the Home Office, and, as I have indicated, housing officers visit a third of all properties every 28 days, on an intelligence-led basis, under our overall compliance approach.

The hon. Gentleman made a point about complaints. Provisions in the contract ensure that complaints should be escalated and taken seriously. Again, that is something I want the audit to understand in terms of the situation in the north-east. The matter will be pursued in that way. He also asks for a broadening of the arrangements. I do not judge that to be appropriate. I will see what the audit tells us and then consider whether further action is needed.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is extraordinary that, with all these inspections, it took a journalist as distinguished as Andrew Norfolk to expose the problems. I accept what the Minister has said—he has acted with great speed in trying to put measures in place—but the Home Affairs Committee has written to Ministers in the past with concerns about the COMPASS contract. Over the years, Ministers have given these contracts to big companies, such as G4S and Serco, that are once removed from the real providers. As the House knows, G4S is a serial offender in respect of these breaches. With the greatest will in the world and despite his commitment to making sure something is done, I do not believe that an audit will be sufficient. If it is accepted that the doors were painted in a certain colour, that is appalling, and it should have been discussed and discovered earlier. When the audit is complete, will he undertake either to make a statement to the House or come to the Select Committee with its findings?

[James Brokenshire]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I appear before his Committee frequently to update it and, by extension, the House on matters relating to the immigration system. I believe I might be appearing before it in the near term, which might provide an opportunity for me to update him and his Committee and, by extension, other right hon. and hon. Members, about the work being done. I can certainly give him that assurance.

The right hon. Gentleman highlighted the question of whether it was accepted or known that doors were painted a particular colour. As I have already told the House, there is a practice among some social housing providers to paint in a particular colour for maintenance purposes, but it is precisely those factors that I will want to understand as part of the audit of not simply the practice in the north-east but the inspection regimes and processes we have in place to identify whether issues, standards and complaints are dealt with appropriately.

Poppi Worthington

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. If he will allow me to do so, I will discuss the point with the Lord Chancellor, as this will be a matter for the Ministry of Justice, and return to him with further thoughts when I have had that discussion.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s commitment to pursue these matters until all lessons can be learned, but does she agree that the crucial relationship is that between the police and social services? The crucial process is that information is passed on immediately. If that is done, these terrible acts can be discovered even more efficiently.

[Karen Bradley]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. If agencies are not working together and talking to each other, we will not find and protect those children who so desperately need our protection. I have been impressed and pleased with the work in multiagency safeguarding hubs, and in the many that I have visited it is truly refreshing to see police, social services, probation services and other agencies that have a role in protecting the most vulnerable people in society—particularly children—sitting together, co-located, working together, sharing information, and taking action immediately. We need more of that, and I know that Chief Constable Simon Bailey, who leads on child sexual abuse for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, is keen to ensure more multi-agency working so that we get that protection.

Donald Trump

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petitions 114003 and 114907 relating to the exclusion of Donald Trump from the UK.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the Petitions Committee, which under its inspired Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), has allowed me to introduce the debate on these two petitions. This is a bit of an occasion, because the first petition has been signed by more people than any other in this Parliament. It has 573,971 signatures, and its title is “Block Donald J Trump from UK entry”. The second petition is titled “Don’t ban Trump from the United Kingdom”. That petition is curious. It has 42,898 signatures, but 30,000 signatures were removed because they were thought to be suspect and coming from one source. Anyone who is trying to rig the system should be aware that they will be found out.

The text of the first petition reads:

“The signatories believe Donald J Trump should be banned from UK entry. The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech. The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK. If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behaviour’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.”

The text of the other petition states that

“we shouldn’t be banning people for their opinions on domestic actions in a US political race that doesn’t concern us. But more importantly if he does actually win the nomination, and then goes on to win the presidency. We then have to work with a man who we banned from our country in the first place…Lets mind our own business.”

The Government’s response to both petitions, which was not entirely helpful, said that

“the Government does not routinely comment on individual immigration and exclusion decisions…Exclusion powers are very serious and are not used lightly…The Prime Minister has made clear that he completely disagrees with Donald Trump’s remarks. The Home Secretary has said that Donald Trump’s remarks in relation to Muslims are divisive, unhelpful and wrong. The Government recognises the strength of feeling against…the marginalisation amongst those we endeavour to protect.”

The Government do not directly answer questions on those who are banned, but they did publish a list of 20 people who were denied entry to the United Kingdom between 2008 and 2009. I will not mention their names— I do not want to give them extra notoriety—but I will give some idea of the sort of people who have been banned. The first was a leader of a violent gang that beat migrants and posted films of the attacks on the internet. The gang leader was considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by fomenting serious criminal activity and seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts. Another was described as a preacher considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by fomenting terrorist violence in furtherance of his political beliefs. Another was considered to be engaged in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts. A fourth was a Muslim writer and public speaker from India. He was excluded from the United Kingdom because he had made anti-Jewish statements, thus fostering hatred among others. Those examples are entirely typical of the kind of people who are excluded.

We should say that the situation with Mr Donald Trump does not correspond with those cases, which are far more serious and presented an immediate threat of violence. The petitioners claim that violent attacks have been committed in Boston and elsewhere by people who quoted Donald Trump. It is alleged that one attacked a Hispanic person and one attacked a Mexican. That is what the petitioners are basing their points on.

One case does correspond with the situation with Donald Trump. Geert Wilders is a Dutch person who was seen to be fomenting hatred against Muslims and to be guilty of homophobia. He was banned by the Home Secretary in 2009. Mr Wilders appealed to the court and won. The result was that he was allowed into the country, and the publicity and attention that he gained for his Islamophobia and his film were multiplied a hundredfold by the ban. We should bear that in mind.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing and leading this debate. Does he share my concern about the number of cases—the cases have come to light since Mr Trump’s comments, but were not because of them—of British Muslims being refused admission to the United States of America? Does my hon. Friend agree that, whenever that happens and whether the people are Muslims or not, there should be a clear indication of why they have been refused admission?

[Paul Flynn]

The figures are worrying, but we are still in a position where the President of America is Barack Obama. I am sure that he would look with equal disapproval at those cases, but they need to be investigated. It is certainly of considerable concern, and Mr Wilders’ case is of great significance to us.

The creator of the main petition said:

“Freedom of any kind comes with responsibility; this includes free speech. Freedom of speech is not the freedom to engage in hate. Words can wound and can be a rallying cry to violence…The reality of hate speech’s ability to incite violent acts is why the UK’s laws have stopped some 80 individuals from entering the UK to date.”

The petitioner quotes certain violent acts that have taken place in America, which they put down to Mr Trump’s intervention.

The way in which this debate has been reported throughout the world has created an enormous amount of attention, and we want to make it clear that it is no attempt to disrespect in any way Americans or the American state. Our cultures have melded together over the years, getting ever closer. This is the country that sacrificed more of its sons and daughters in the cause of creating democracy in other countries than any other nation on Earth. This is the land of Barack Obama, Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I will look carefully at the case that the right hon. Gentleman has raised, specifically at the facts and circumstances which he has drawn to the attention of the House, and I will write to him.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Despite measures having been taken by the Government, the number of sham marriages appears to be on the increase. In 2014, the last year for which we have figures, a total of 2,486 weddings were visited by enforcement officers. Will the Minister look at the possibility of giving registrars the power to cancel ceremonies, thus relieving the pressure on Home Office officials to crash weddings in this way?

[James Brokenshire]

The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and I have debated these issues in the past. Since April last year 12,253 notices to marry have been referred to the Home Office through the new arrangements. Of these, 160 proposed marriages were considered a sham, and a further 99 marriages were prevented because couples did not follow the necessary requirements and co-operate with the investigation. This is a serious matter on which we have already taken action. Between April and September last year we arrested 528 individuals and removed more than 279 people involved in sham marriages, underlining our focus on that issue.

Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Because of the number of countries involved in Interpol and the amount of information that is available, there are very real difficulties and physical issues in getting all those countries to agree to such a system. In the European Union, countries have come together and decided that it would be beneficial to have such an automated process. So far, Interpol has retained the manual processes. Later, I will exemplify the difference in timing between the automated process of Prüm and the manual processes of Interpol.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary is absolutely right to opt in to this mechanism. It is not about giving information away in its totality, but about sharing information. One of the lessons from Paris is the importance of EU countries knowing who is coming through the external borders. Does she agree that it is essential that when countries have concerns about individuals, they put them on the databases as quickly as possible?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. One of the arguments that we are making in Europe is that we should make better use of other databases, such as the Schengen Information System II border database, to ensure that we do the job that we all want to do. Criminals and terrorists do not recognise borders and do not stop at borders. It is therefore important that data are shared between countries so that we can identify them and bring them to justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

In any judicial process, there is the potential for mistakes and a miscarriage of justice. Is the hon. Gentleman honestly saying that he was right about the European arrest warrant all that time ago, and that it has been a bad thing and should be scrapped? If so, I think that he is in a small minority in the House, because people have seen the benefits that have come to UK law enforcement following its introduction.

I mentioned that case at the beginning of my speech because I see a parallel between the debate that took place then and the debate that we are having today. Ten years on, as the Home Secretary said, we find ourselves in the aftermath of an horrific attack in one member state that was conceived and planned in another—and I note the letter that the Home Secretary received from Minister Cazeneuve encouraging our full participation in Prüm.

In these difficult times, we—all of us in the House—have an obligation to consider every possible measure to protect the public. It seems to me that the case for greater data sharing and access to data that are held across Europe is now unanswerable, and that we have an obligation to support that case. It is no exaggeration to say that our national security depends on it. That is why, as the Home Secretary said, the last Labour Government made the original decision to sign up to the Prüm decisions in 2007, recognising their potential for our law enforcement agencies. It is also why, back in July 2013, we explicitly warned the Government against opting out of a whole range of EU justice and home affairs measures including Prüm. As I understand it, the Government received warnings from other senior figures in UK law enforcement, and they should have listened to them because, as was pointed out back then, that decision seemed to be driven less by an objective assessment of the impact on crime prevention and detection, and more by a political desire to appease the never-satisfied forces of Euroscepticism on the Conservative Benches. Tempting as it is to say, “We told you so” to the Home Secretary today, we will try and resist that and instead congratulate her on eventually arriving at the right decision and encourage her to resist the blandishments of the forces of darkness who are again rearing their head today.

[Keith Vaz]

In fact, the Home Secretary’s speech today was a tour de force as to why we should have been in Prüm last year. Think of the number of criminals we could have caught, or potential terrorists we could have found, if only we had joined a year ago.

[Andy Burnham]

The case the Home Secretary has just set out from the Dispatch Box was compelling and powerful, revealing, as it did, the zeal of the convert to the cause. She was right to make her case with such force, and I am sure my right hon. Friend would agree that the problem with the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Stone and others this evening is that it invites the House to prioritise the civil liberties of British citizens and risks to UK sovereignty over and above risks to national security. That is what the amendment to the motion invites us to do.

Of course our liberties and our sovereignty are important considerations, but the safety of the public must come first. That is the primary duty of any Government, and it is why the Government are right not to listen to the hon. Member for Stone. The truth is they got themselves into difficulty two years ago by listening to those siren voices, and I hope Members on the Treasury Bench will not make the same mistake today. Indeed, I hope they would have learned an important lesson from this whole episode. It was the European Council that required the Government, after notification of the opt-out, to conduct and publish a business and implementation case assessing the costs and benefits of Prüm. In other words, the EU forced the UK Government to face up to the benefits of European co-operation and in bringing this motion to the House tonight they are effectively conceding the EU was right all along.

That assessment was informed by a pilot undertaken by the Government which the Home Secretary referred to. It found an overwhelming case to opt back in. It involved DNA samples from 2,513 unsolved British murders, rapes and burglaries which were automatically checked against European police databases in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. Searching the profiles against the databases of those four member states revealed 71 scene-to-person matches and 47 scene-to-scene matches, five relating to rape, two to sexual assault and 23 to burglary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). I woke up this morning by reading his article in The Daily Telegraph on this subject, and here he is live this afternoon quoting Lenin, who I am sure is required reading for all his electors in Ashford.

I will not quote Lenin, but I will quote the Home Secretary who, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, we revere on this side of the House. In 2014 she said that

“we have neither the time nor the money to implement Prüm by 1 December. I have said that it will be senseless for us to rejoin it now and risk being infracted. Despite considerable pressure from the Commission and other member states, that remains the case.”—[Official Report, 10 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 492.]

I was delighted to see her conversion, which was based—of course—on very strong evidence from the pilot that the Government put in place, and on a powerful case that we should join this important part of the EU. She has obviously thought about it carefully over the past 12 months, and I appreciate the courtesy of the Immigration Minister who rang me a week ago and told me what the Government planned to do.

All the arguments have been made. I could just say, “I agree” and sit down, but this would not be Parliament if I were to do that. It is rare for those on both Front Benches to speak so eloquently in support of a motion—perhaps that will be a feature of European debates to come.

[Mrs Main]

I disagreed with the shadow Home Secretary when he said that those who wanted to vote in favour of this motion would be expressing their delight at an ever closer union. I disagreed with him about that, and I felt—perhaps this is the useful idiot bit—that he was losing me at that point.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Lady is right. Voting for the motion does not mean an ever closer union—that issue is still under negotiation with the Prime Minister and the rest of the EU—but it does mean helping us to fight terrorism and serious and organised crime. I hope that she will vote with the Government on this occasion, as I am sure she has done on many other occasions since she came to the House.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

My right hon. Friend is making a compelling argument. We all, including those of us who represent constituencies in Northern Ireland, want issues of cross-border crime to be dealt with and eliminated. Does he agree, however, that data protection must not be sacrificed and that civil liberties must be protected?

[Keith Vaz]

I do agree with that, but I am reassured by what the Home Secretary has said about the creation of the oversight board, and the fact that information about those on the database who have not committed criminal offences will not be shared.

That brings me to an important point. I am getting confused with all these various databases, so I asked the Library which databases on criminal and terrorist links are available and could be shared with the rest of the EU. It came up with an awesome list of databases that contain hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, of names. The police national computer holds a number of pieces of information—11,559,157 names. There is the Police National Database; ViSOR; the DNA database, which currently holds 5,094,325 names; Semaphore, which is about to be improved because the Home Office announced an extra £25 million to improve its capability; and the Warnings Index, which is also capable of improvement—I will make reference to this—because we heard recently that it is not as effective as it ought to be in tracking those who come into this country. We do not know how many are on the Warnings Index, of course, because it is confidential. Again, we do not know the numbers on the Watch lists database, but it is still of interest. As far as the European Union is concerned, there is the second generation Schengen information system, SIS II, the Europol information system and the Interpol database. Again, we do not know how many names are on those databases.

We are talking about an awful lot of databases. When the Minister comes to wind up, it would be very helpful if he told the House which of the UK databases will be subject to this decision and which of the European and international databases—it may be all of them—are also going to be part of the decision we make today. I support what the Government are doing, but it is nice to have clarity for those who think that every single bit of information ever collected about a British citizen will be made available.

My concern is the security of the border, especially after the events in Paris. I believe the decision of the Government will help us to track people who leave this country and end up in the European Union; people like Trevor Brooks and Simon Keeler, who on Wednesday 18 November were arrested at Hungary’s border with Romania. One of them was subject to a Home Office ban, but managed to leave the country, cross our borders and go into the rest of the EU. On Sunday, The Sunday Telegraph reported that a senior Daesh fundraiser, Mohammed Khaled, who was under a strict counter-terrorism order, managed to flee the United Kingdom to join jihadists in Syria. As we have heard in the media, one of the Paris attackers, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was wanted for previous offences in Europe but managed to travel to Syria and back without detention.

The problem—I put this to the Home Secretary when I intervened—is our European colleagues not putting suspects’ names on the databases as soon as they become people of interest. It is very important that they do so. If suspects cross borders and we want to know where they are, it is important that they are on the database in the first place. The Greek ambassador gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee two weeks ago. He lamented that in the case of one of those involved in the Paris attacks, even though the French decided this individual was a person of interest, his name had not been put on the database. When he crossed the border between Turkey and Greece it was not possible for his name to be flagged up on the system, so they were unable to alert the French. We therefore want to be sure that this happens as quickly as possible. We welcome the speed of the new arrangements; I think the Home Secretary said 15 minutes as opposed to two-and-a-half months, which sounds absolutely incredible. That is fine, but the names have to go on the database in the first place.

Only yesterday, the head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, said there was a “black hole of information” that hampered co-operation on counter-terrorism. He mentioned the fact that fewer than half the foreign fighters identified by national counter-terrorism authorities are registered in our system, which is meant to provide a basic cross-European data check. As we know, 18 million or so people are not part of the passenger name recognition system that the Home Secretary has been battling away—I think for all the years she has been Home Secretary—to get the rest of the European Union signed up to. The fact is that just one person coming into our country who we do not know affects the security of our borders.

We should take the head of the Europol at his word and try to assist those international organisations. A few years ago, the Committee suggested the creation of an international counter-terrorism platform as part of Interpol. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. Interpol and Europol have a great deal of information and data, and we should be building on what they have got. That is why I am pleased that on 1 January Europol will be launching the EU’s counter-terrorism centre, which will help us enormously in the fight against terrorism.

Finally, I turn to the European arrest warrant, which is not the subject of the debate but to which right hon. and hon. Members have referred. The Committee, in successive reports, has pointed to real problems with the EAW. It is a great idea, but there are technicalities that cause problems for British citizens, and we should be extremely careful about taking the view that signing up to these agreements means that everything will be all right. We need to monitor carefully what is being suggested, and if, for any reason, we need to change our involvement, we should do so.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Thanks to the European arrest warrant, my constituent, Michael Turner, of whom I know the right hon. Gentleman is aware, was sent to jail in Hungary for four months without trial. We fought it very hard, and the Government assured us the matter would be looked at, but I am afraid I have no confidence in European jurisdiction, and this move concerns me, despite the fact that we all want to fight terrorism, regardless of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) rather unhelpfully said.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is right. He fought very hard for his constituent, Michael Turner, who, thanks to the hon. Gentleman, gave evidence to the Committee. He was let down by the system. It is wrong that someone who is completely innocent should be arrested and held in another country for so long. Apart from anything else, the damage to reputation and personal integrity is enormous. There are problems with the EAW that we need to look at, but, as an idea, it is right that we are able to trace people throughout Europe. The actual implementation and practicalities, however, cause hardship to people such as Michael Turner.

In conclusion, the Home Secretary’s conversion is welcome and her case powerful. I hope we can use this system to ensure that criminals do not escape without being brought to justice and that those who seek to enter our country to undermine our values through terrorism are caught at the border and sent back to where they belong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

Perish the thought!

[Keith Vaz]

He’s a nice man!

[Gavin Robinson]

I am a Eurosceptic, but pragmatically so. [Laughter.] I hear some laughter coming from across the Chamber, but it is important that when we agree on certain constitutional issues and the future of this country, we coalesce and unite around those issues. I do have a difference of opinion with those who have signed the amendment and it is important to outline—

Immigration Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I will speak only very briefly. Unfortunately, the Home Affairs Committee sitting has prevented me and other members of it from being in the Chamber, though the hon. Gentleman for Cumbernauld and the rest of the places he represents—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald).

[Keith Vaz]

I knew you would remember, Mr Speaker. The hon. Gentleman did tell me that he would be in the House to speak on behalf of his party, which of course he does so very eloquently.

I join the shadow Home Secretary and the Home Secretary in welcoming all the good work done by Members on both sides of the House in scrutinising the Bill, particularly the new shadow Minister for Immigration. The shadow Home Secretary has stolen him from the Home Affairs Committee. He says he is the star striker—he is not yet the Jamie Vardy of the team, but he is going that way. Sorry, I could not think of an Arsenal player; otherwise I would have mentioned him.

I think that I have served longer than any other Member in the Chamber at the moment, with the exception of the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), who had a short gap to be the First Minister of Scotland. In the 28 years I have been in the House, we have had about 20 immigration Bills. Every time we have one, the Home Secretary in successive Governments has got up at the Dispatch Box and said that, as a result of passing the Bill, immigration will be kept under control, the system will be much better, illegal migration will be reduced and that is the end of the show as far as such matters are concerned. Unfortunately, it never ends up like that: we pass legislation, and I am afraid that at the end of the day we have to come back again to pass another Bill.

I hope that that will not be the case with this Immigration Bill, because during the next four years until the next election I do not want the Home Secretary—either the right hon. Lady or her successor, although I am sure she will be in office for a long while—to have to come back and tell the House, “Well, it didn’t quite work, so we’re going to try something new.” My concern is not with passing legislation, although that is of course what the House is for, but with the way in which we administer the legislation. As reflected in the reports of the Home Affairs Committee, my concern has always been with the administration of the Home Office.

The Home Secretary has taken great strides. She has abolished the UK Border Agency and replaced it with a much more effective organisation. Sarah Rapson and her team are doing a much better job than their predecessors. However, there are always examples of situations in which illegal migration is not under control. Only yesterday, as a result of work done by the BBC in the south-west, undercover reporters posing as illegal migrants went to various places in Kent and Sussex and offered themselves as employees—[Interruption.] I can send the Home Secretary the video. They offered themselves as employees to work illegally in those two counties, and they were offered jobs at £2.80 an hour. They were also given advice by the employers on how to evade enforcement officers.

So no matter what legislation we pass here, at the end of the day we need an administration that is fit for purpose. I hope that, as a result of passing this legislation, we will get more focus on how we enforce the law, to ensure that those who wish to come to this country legally—students and others who genuinely want to study and work here—can do so, and that those who want to come here illegally will not be allowed to do so and will not be allowed to offer themselves for employment and to be put at risk by unscrupulous employers. There is a huge job of work to be done on the way in which we deal with enforcement, and if we can get the enforcement section of UK Visas and Immigration up to the same standard as the other parts of the organisation, it will make a huge difference. I hope that the Home Secretary will take that message with her as she continues her long journey running the Home Office.

The Select Committee heard today from the head of the UK Border Force, Sir Charles Montgomery, that he had not yet been told what his allocation was to be following the cuts—or should I say the austerity measures —at the Home Office. The Home Secretary fought a good fight with the Chancellor to protect the budget for counter-terrorism and policing, but she obviously did not win the fight in respect of the Home Office’s other functions. I hope that Sir Charles will be given that information as soon as possible, because protecting our borders, especially in the current climate, is one of the key concerns of the House and, I know, of the Government.