Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister was determined to prove that the width of the question could be met by the width of the answer.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

To make an application in the United Kingdom many Syrian refugees face death by crossing the Mediterranean or, as I witnessed at the weekend, by running into the channel tunnel or jumping on speeding lorries in Calais. This is an EU problem. What is to be done about processing some of those applications on the north African shelf so that people are able to make their applications without risking death?

[James Brokenshire]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his reappointment as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I look forward to appearing before the Committee, no doubt before too long.

[Keith Vaz]

Next week.

[James Brokenshire]

There we are!

The right hon. Gentleman makes a serious point about the flow of people across the Mediterranean, which is why we have been clear about breaking that link of people thinking that they can get on to vessels and make that perilous journey northwards to the EU. I know that he has made interesting and important comments on this issue, but we must be clear not to establish new legal routes into the EU as that may make matters more difficult. I look forward to appearing before his Committee and giving further evidence.

Border Management (Calais)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is important that people understand what that journey means, what they will be coming to and the dangers of the journey. We have been working with the French authorities on the messages given to people who reach Calais about the fact that they should claim asylum in France. By the end of this year, the French authorities will have more than trebled the number of people processed in Calais compared with 2013.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

This crisis has been waiting to happen and no blame should be attached to the Government on it, because enormous amounts of money have been spent trying to deal with security in Calais, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and I saw for ourselves. The problem is the Mediterranean. Once people get to Calais, it is too late. Once people enter France, it is too late. That is why I welcome the establishment of the taskforce. The taskforce has to work with the Governments of the Maghreb. They are the key to preventing people from setting sail in the first place. It is not just the Italian border, but the Greek-Turkish border. The Home Secretary will have our support in trying to ensure that other EU countries bear their responsibility as well.

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and take the opportunity to congratulate him on his re-election to the chairmanship of the Home Affairs Committee. I dare say that he and I will be looking at each other across a room in the House of Commons on a number of occasions over the coming months.

The right hon. Gentleman is right that we need to identify the need to do something about the journeys from parts of Africa through the Mediterranean. The route from Libya to Italy is crucial, but he is right that people are being transported and moved through the Turkey-Greece border into Europe. We will work with Governments in Africa and elsewhere to ensure that we have an understanding of those movements and that we are able to deal with the criminal gangs. That is why I am pleased that the National Crime Agency has already focused on that and is increasing that focus.

Refugee Situation in the Mediterranean

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this important debate on the crisis in the Mediterranean, which is a significant cause of anxiety for Governments and people across Europe, as victims continue dying on a daily basis and countries such as Greece and Italy reach breaking point under the pressure.

The figures are shocking. More than 100,000 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean from north Africa to mainland Europe in the past 23 weeks. The total figure for 2015 may reach 200,000. Of those, about 56,000 have reached Italy, 48,000 have arrived in Greece, 920 in Spain and just under 100 in Malta. On the Greek island of Kos, 7,500 migrants have joined a population of just 30,000. Hundreds are now sleeping on the streets, struggling to access food and water.

I will lay out 10 points that I believe are necessary measures the United Kingdom should take to address the situation.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way; I asked his permission to intervene on him. Some 2,000 refugees have died trying to get across the Mediterranean in the past year, and that figure is 20 times higher than that in 2014. Does he agree that it is time for Europe, the European Union and European countries to work together with those in north Africa and the middle east to address the issue? If they do not, it would be impossible for a single country to do so itself.

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman and, as I develop my speech, I think he will be pleased with the strategy I set out. He said that 2,000 have died in the past year. In fact, in the past six months, 1,725 people have drowned making this perilous journey, and there must be others who have died in small, unrecorded boats that have capsized. The figure is likely to exceed 3,000 by the end of this year.

Often travelling in crafts that are completely unseaworthy, these innocent men, women and children pay up to €7,000 to make the journey to Libya. Mr Speaker, your own distinguished chaplain, the Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin, made a passionate plea on the “Daily Politics” last week about the staggering humanitarian catastrophe on Europe’s doorstep.

This is part of a much wider issue. According to a report published by Amnesty International just yesterday, the neglect of conflicts around the world has led to the worst displacement crisis since the second world war. The report shows that millions of refugees—4 million from Syria alone—have been condemned to a life of misery, and hundreds of thousands of people are trying to reach the EU for a better life.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

May I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and on bringing this issue to the House? As he rightly points out, we are facing the worst refugee crisis since the war. Does he share my concern regarding today’s reports about the withdrawal of HMS Bulwark from the Mediterranean theatre, and will he join me in thanking the service personnel who have done a phenomenal job in very difficult circumstances?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I pay tribute to the work done by those who serve on HMS Bulwark, and I will come to a specific point concerning what I hope the Government will do when that project comes to an end on 5 July.

The situation in Libya is a critical factor. Libya is a failed state just over an hour and half’s flight time from Rome. Constant conflict between multiple factions has left it largely ungoverned. It has few ports and poor infrastructure. Yesterday I spoke to the Italian ambassador, Pasquale Terracciano, who told me that 92% of migrants crossing the Mediterranean leave from Libya. The refugees travelling from Libya consist largely of victims of war and conflict in Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Nigeria and Somalia. Last Monday in Schloss Elmau, leaders of the G7 called on Libya’s leaders to form a Government of national accord. However, calling for a political solution is not enough, and the reconciliation process faces numerous obstacles. We urgently need to support the UN mission to bring parties in Libya to the conference table.

One obstacle is the prevalence of criminal gangs in Libya, which play a large part in trafficking migrants from their points of origin into the Mediterranean. These vicious groups have made millions on the back of the drowned victims. Over the past Christmas period alone, traffickers made an estimated €3 million from packing between 300 and 400 people on to old, doomed ships, on some occasions forcing them on to the vessels at gunpoint. This was vividly demonstrated on 2 January, when 360 Syrian refugees, including 70 children, were rescued after the Ezadeen, a livestock freighter, was left adrift in freezing conditions.

Some of the groups profiting from this situation include international terrorist organisations such as ISIS, which recently captured territory in the city of Sirte. Intelligence from Italy shows that trafficking has become a significant revenue stream for terrorist organisations to fund their activities. Terminating these trafficking rings is vital. Will the Minister assure us that the Government are providing practical support to train Libyan security forces, disarm the militias and re-establish the rule of law?

Many of our EU partners believe that direct military action against the trafficking rings is necessary. The current plans are stalled in the UN Security Council, as the remnants of the Libyan Government have rejected proposals to take military action in Libyan territorial waters. However, there is no obstacle to taking firmer action in international waters under the EU’s common security and defence policy. The Italian Government believe that such an operation would be similar to the international action against Somali pirates, and they are right. The Government should provide direct support for more aggressive measures against the traffickers in international waters.

The Khartoum process, a commitment between the EU, north African countries and countries in the horn of Africa to co-operate in tackling people trafficking, appears to have had little impact. The project has been watered down and is a slow solution to a critical problem. We need an inclusive process that includes all those parties, but it needs to be tougher, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. Countries such as Tunisia and Algeria have to be vested with greater authority and resources to deal with this problem. The Tunisian ambassador, Nabil Ammar, has provided me with information showing that his country’s security forces stopped 191 illegal migration attempts this year, detaining a total of 1,265 people. They cannot maintain these efforts without our support.

What we need is a permanent taskforce, meeting on a 24/7 basis, with the authority to work with Frontex, to replace the Khartoum process entirely. It must include the key north African and southern Mediterranean countries. Through this taskforce, or otherwise, we must ensure that our north African neighbours receive adequate resources, as they face an increasingly significant humanitarian and security problem.

To relieve the stress on Italian, Greek and Spanish authorities, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs, has called for migration centres to be established in Tunisia and Egypt. These centres would allow migrants to make asylum applications that are processed remotely outside Europe, preventing the migrants from risking their lives in the Mediterranean. The Government should review their current position against these centres, which present a legal alternative to refugees risking their lives in the Mediterranean.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an important speech. Does he agree that any arrangements must take account especially of child migrants, who are particularly vulnerable?

[Keith Vaz]

I commend my hon. Friend for calling for a debate on this subject at last week’s business questions. I am glad we are able to have the debate today. Yes, we must take special care of the children who are put at risk because of what is happening in the Mediterranean. She is absolutely right.

Operation Triton is the Frontex rescue mission that replaced Mare Nostrum. It has failed to live up to expectations. Operating at a third of the budget of Mare Nostrum, which saved 150,000 people in 2014, Triton was clearly overstretched, as the number of migrants making the journey to Italy increased by 30%. Sadly, and predictably, the number of deaths rose ninefold under Triton in the period leading up to May. That was tragically demonstrated between 16 and 20 April, when five ships containing around 2,000 migrants sank—1,200 people, including children, died. Triton’s resources were simply unable to cope with such a tragedy.

The subsequent emergency summit on 23 April tripled Triton’s budget to €120 million and expanded its patrol area. Better late than never. Federico Fossi of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees believes that that increase in resources has demonstrated results, and 6,000 people were rescued between 6 and 7 June. Before the emergency summit, aid organisations feared that the death toll would otherwise reach the tens of thousands.

I want to join the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) and others in commending the British Government for dispatching HMS Bulwark to the area, and our servicemen and women for performing heroic tasks. Can the Minister today confirm that when Bulwark’s tour of duty ends on 5 July it will be adequately replaced by an equivalent mission? We must ensure that the rescue mission maintains these improved resources and learn our lesson that we simply cannot manage this problem with a small and poorly financed operation.

One proposed solution to the problem is quotas, which the Home Secretary discussed today with her EU counterparts in Luxembourg. However, as envisaged, quotas would be beset with complications, as any formal announcement may give the green light to the traffickers to send more ships. Particularly while those gangs are operating, mandatory resettlement will not completely solve the problem—a position held by France and Spain. But it is clear to me that burden sharing between Schengen countries is on the agenda.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I endorse everything that my right hon. Friend has said. Does he recall the urgent question in the closing days of the previous Parliament, when the Government were warned that any change in the sea rescue mission would endanger lives? Is it not absolutely vital that every effort is always made to rescue people, whatever the result of their application for refugee status might be? The rescue of human beings must be the first priority of any civilised society.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should try to make arrangements to stop the boats leaving in the first place, but once they are out in the Mediterranean we have a duty to try to save lives.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

On the question of quotas and the Schengen area, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, irrespective of hard and fast numbers, it is vital that the United Kingdom takes its fair share of people who are seeking refuge from north Africa?

[Keith Vaz]

Ultimately, I think that we will have to do that anyway, because once the migrants get to Calais it is too late, as I will say later. We have to be part of the solution to the problem.

Although quotas are not the complete answer, we have to work on that as a solution. The resources and political capital required to address migration into Europe cannot come only from the affected countries. Italy and Greece have been warning us of the problem for years, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has described the EU’s response as being “largely insufficient”. He was being polite. Italy and Greece, which are coping with thousands of people in places such as Lampedusa, are under severe strain. The crisis is costing the Italian Government around €800 million a year, and the EU contributes only €60 million in assistance. Today the Italian Government shocked the EU by threatening to shred Schengen, stating that they would consider sending migrants to other EU countries without their Governments’ permission. They have given the EU a wake-up call. The pressure is simply too much for Italy and Greece to handle. The Prime Minister is meeting Prime Minister Renzi in Milan tomorrow, and the issue must be top of the agenda in Anglo-Italian relations. If nothing else, the Government should provide deeper assistance. The EU could use its diplomatic strength to assist in the repatriation of individuals to places such as Mali and Senegal, which is a major challenge. Repatriation agreements are more effective if they are arranged by the EU rather than bilaterally.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and I put it to him that there are two interlinked refugee crises. The Syrian crisis is distinct in that it involves a major political crisis, not necessarily economic migration, so there is a necessity for Europe, and Britain in particular, to take a mandatory quota of Syrian refugees.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is right: we have an obligation to do so. Perhaps when the Minister winds up he will tell the House the number of Syrian refugees that we have taken to date. We have agreed to do that, so it would be good to have an update on that figure.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I commend my right hon. Friend on bringing the matter to the attention of the House. I point out, and ask the Minister to comment on, the fact that in the UK only 187 people have been resettled under the Syrian resettlement programme, compared with 30,000 in Germany and 8,000 in Norway. Whether or not there are mandatory quotas, we should be ashamed, as a country, of the fact that we have accepted only 187 people. There must, surely, be grounds for a full debate on this in the House so that we can settle, or at least make progress on, the question of whether quotas are a pull factor or whether they provide badly needed safety.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her election. I believe that she has just started the debate that she recommended, and I am sure that you have heard what she had to say, Mr Speaker. It is important that we debate what has happened in Syria and the number of people that we have taken, and it is important that we get a proper update from the Government on that point.

There is one final point for the House to consider. We must review the implications of our foreign policy far more carefully. We cannot intervene in third-world countries with no post-conflict development strategy, because we will only create more chaos, as we have done in Libya. We can tinker with where and how asylum and immigration cases are processed, but stabilising the political and security situation in north Africa and the conflict zones is the only long-term solution.

We also need to contribute to the economic development of north African and sub-Saharan African countries. When people are prepared to risk their lives—literally to die—for a better life, we cannot sit by and hope that the processes of the European Union will solve the problem. They will not. This Mediterranean madness has only one winner: the criminal gangs that make money. Everyone else loses: the desperate migrants in Lampedusa, Kos, Greece and Spain; the overstretched authorities and residents on the EU southern border; and the thousands of victims who have died in the Mediterranean, which has now become the graveyard of Europe. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and the EU has held summits while people are drowning and the countries of the Maghreb and southern Europe are being overwhelmed. To fail to act now could result in one of the great betrayals of history.

Anderson Report

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his comments and, in particular, for his last point. It is absolutely the case that our agencies have been and are working lawfully and ethically in everything they do. They have a difficult job to do and it is important, as he says, that we give them the powers they need. It is in everyone’s interests that the legislation is as clear as possible, but I am tempted to say that although I start off thinking that it will be simple to provide a clear piece of legislation, once parliamentary counsel and the lawyers in this House and in the other place get hold of it, the clarity tends to get a little lost. We shall see what happens.

My right hon. and learned Friend raises another important issue, which is the question of foreseeability. People should be able to understand not just how powers might be being used but how they might be used in future, and that is of course an issue that would need to be considered.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I join the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary in thanking Mr Anderson for this excellent report. It is right that we should consider judicial scrutiny, and the approach of the Home Secretary to give this to a Joint Committee is the right one. It cannot be handled by one Committee. She will note that Committees in the previous Parliament—and individual Members—have talked about the fact that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was introduced in 2000 and needs to be updated. Does she agree that that is also on the agenda and that, as she consolidates these pieces of legislation, it is important that we consider that Act to ensure that our agencies have the right powers and that there is also a proper balance?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman is right and, of course, under his chairmanship the Home Affairs Committee touched on some of those issues. Some of the powers that David Anderson is talking about relate to RIPA and how it operates, and of course they will be considered as part of the new legislation.

Clandestine Migrants (Harwich)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Unfortunately, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), the Minister and the shadow Minister all significantly exceeded their allotted time. I am keen to accommodate the very proper interest of colleagues, and I will try to do so, but I am also conscious—I hope that the House will be sensitive to the fact—of an important Second Reading debate to follow, which is well subscribed and of which I must therefore take proper account.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Minister has one of the toughest jobs in Government. I congratulate him on being the first Immigration Minister to be reappointed after a general election.

I fully support what Charles Montgomery and his team have done at the border. They do an excellent job, as does Wagtail UK, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. This is fundamentally an EU problem, in terms of not only tackling the human traffickers, but protecting the border. Will the Minister ensure that Frontex is made to do the job that it is supposed to do, which is to protect the external border of the EU so that people such as those caught in the containers are not allowed to be treated in that way?

Home Affairs and Justice

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 28th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman has raised this issue on a number of occasions in the House and the answer I will give him now is no different from that I have given previously. It is already possible for arrangements to be put in place so that people can come forward and give their evidence without concerns about the Official Secrets Act. It is now an issue for Justice Goddard in relation to the child sexual abuse inquiry. It is for her to discuss the matter, if she wishes to, with the Attorney General, ensuring that arrangements are in place so that people come forward. The hon. Gentleman and I share the same intention: people who have evidence, who have allegations of child sexual abuse, whether it has occurred recently or in the past, should be able to come forward to the inquiry and ensure that those allegations—where appropriate; where they are specific—can be investigated by the police. We all want to ensure that we recognise what has taken place, that evidence is brought forward and that the inquiry is able to come to proper judgments about what went wrong in the past and how we can ensure that it does not happen in the future.

In addition, the Bill will allow us to deliver further reforms to the criminal justice system to protect the public, to ensure offenders are punished appropriately and to make our systems and processes more efficient. We will also enshrine the rights of victims in primary legislation to make sure that victims are supported and protected throughout the criminal justice process, making it clear to criminal justice agencies that they must comply with their duties towards victims.

The Policing and Criminal Justice Bill will ensure that we can better protect the public, but we must also protect the public from specific harms, so I turn now to the trade in new psychoactive substances. I know that the ready availability of these substances on the high street is of deep concern to Members, to the public beyond and to many parents in particular. The issue was raised recently with me by new colleagues, whom I am happy to welcome to the House, my hon. Friends the Members for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster). The issue concerns many people in their communities.

In 2013 there were 120 deaths involving new psychoactive substances in England, Scotland and Wales, so the Gracious Speech includes a Bill to introduce a blanket ban on the supply of new psychoactive substances. During the previous Parliament we took a number of significant steps to deal with the issue, including using enhanced powers under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, such as temporary class drug orders, to ban more than 500 new psychoactive substances. But with these existing powers we are always playing catch-up, banning new psychoactive substances on a substance-by-substance or group-by-group basis, while the suppliers stay one step ahead.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Home Secretary on her reappointment, and on her choice of Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis)? She has poached a former member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs to assist her.

I warmly welcome what she says about psychoactive substances, which is fully in keeping with the recommendations made by the Committee in the previous Parliament, but will she say something about prescription drugs? There has been a tendency for the use, and abuse, of prescription drugs to increase, so it is important, when looking at the whole issue, that we send out the strong message that they are abused as well.

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. He and I spent some time across the Committee Room from each other, discussing a number of home affairs issues during his very competent chairmanship of the Home Affairs Committee. As he says, the Committee came forward with proposals on the issue, and I am pleased, having looked at the issue and having had the expert panel, that we have come to the view that a blanket ban is necessary.

We have looked at the issue of prescription and other drugs, and I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentlemen. I think the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs may be looking at that, but I will confirm that and write to him.

The introduction of a blanket ban will ensure that our law enforcement agencies have the necessary powers to put an end to this trade and to protect our young people from the harm caused by these untested, unregulated substances. We will also continue to build on our balanced and successful approach to drug misuse—reducing the demand for drugs, restricting their supply and supporting individuals to recover from dependence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point. One of the early moves that the coalition Government made was to prevent the detention of children for immigration purposes. He also raises an important point about the detention estate. The Home Office is looking at what estate is required and at the whole question of periods of detention. I and, I suspect, my hon. Friend would prefer to see people detained for a very short period—in fact, many people are detained for only a matter of days, and the majority of detentions are for less than two months. It is important that we have a system for identifying and quickly deporting people who should not be here. That is why we took some measures in the Immigration Act 2014, and I will come on to the further measures that we intend to take to enable that to happen.

[Keith Vaz]

The problem is not the willingness of this House to pass tough legislation to deal with illegal migration but the ability of the system to enforce it. In the last Parliament, only 3% of the allegations made to get people removed resulted in deportation, and the Government rightly abandoned the campaign with their bus asking people to leave the country, thanks to the work of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). The campaign was a mistake, and she stopped the bus in its tracks. We need an effective system of removal, and that is where we are being let down at the moment.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman makes the obvious point that we want to be able to remove the people who are here illegally and have no right to stay here. We inherited a system with many appeal routes, and people could constantly churn around the system. There was no concept of deporting foreign national criminals first and allowing them to appeal from outside the country. Those are changes that the Government have already made, but further legislative changes need to be made to enhance our ability to deal with the issues. One of the other changes that the previous Government made, which the right hon. Gentleman supported, was to break up the UK Border Agency and create a separate immigration enforcement body.

[Keith Vaz]

We recommended it.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman says that he recommended it. We brought immigration enforcement into the Home Office so that we could focus more clearly on the system of removals and its efficiency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

That is exactly the point, because the Home Secretary’s net migration target includes some kinds of immigration and not others. She has ignored student visitor visas because they are not included in her net migration target, but she includes refugees in her net migration target and wants to push it down.

[Keith Vaz]

The problem with having a net migration figure is that we cannot control the number of people who want to go out of the country.

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend is right—that is a problem.

The Home Secretary’s net migration target includes students, visa overstayers, workers and refugees, but it does not include illegal immigration. That is why she failed so badly in the previous Parliament to deal properly with illegal immigration. It also does not include people who enter the country on short-term visas, even if they may then overstay and break the rules and abuse the system.

The problem for the Home Secretary is that by treating everything as part of her net migration target, she is failing. The area where her approach is failing most, and is most immoral, is the inclusion of refugees in the net migration target. That has created an incentive for the Home Office to resist giving people sanctuary, undermining our long tradition of humanitarian help. Ministers shake their heads, but let us look at the evidence about what they have done as a result of their direct incentive to cut the number of refugees that Britain accepts.

Eighteen months ago, I called on the Home Secretary to make sure that Britain was doing its bit to give sanctuary to some of those in greatest need in the refugee camps outside Syria. She resisted until she was forced to give in, and even then she accepted only 140 people. Last summer, she led the arguments in Europe to stop search and rescue in the Mediterranean, leaving people to drown in the waves in order to deter others from coming here. Now she is again refusing to help when the UN asks for help. Ministers are right to target people-smugglers’ assets and their empty boats before they can set sail, and right to try to build stability in the region, but that is not enough. Frontex has said that the main cause of the increase in boats is the situation in Syria, which has caused the worst refugee crisis since the second world war. Yet the Home Secretary is still resisting the UN’s appeal to give sanctuary to more Syrian refugees, and refusing to help the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to provide refuge to more of those fleeing Syria and so manage the boat crisis.

I do not expect the Home Secretary to sign up to an arbitrary quota system that is beyond our control, but I do expect her to offer to help. She should work with local councils to see how many more places we can offer and do far more to give desperate people sanctuary, because they are now fleeing not just from the civil war with Assad but from ISIL—a barbaric organisation that oppresses, persecutes and beheads people for their faith and for who they are. Throughout our history, from the Huguenots to the Kindertransport, this country has refused to turn its back on those fleeing persecution and seeking sanctuary. Just as she should not rip up the legacy of international standards on human rights, she should not rip up that legacy of international compassion either.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I was delighted to hear the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). When I was elected 28 years ago, it was said that too many lawyers were entering the House of Commons. However, I think we should make an exception in her case and in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)—two very distinguished QCs who are making their maiden speeches today. The hon. and learned Lady will clearly be a star of this Parliament, and we will all want to hear more of what she has to say on these issues. I want to correct the hon. and learned Lady on one point. Edinburgh may be the most beautiful capital city in the world, but she needs to come to see Leicester, which is by far the most beautiful city in England.

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I want to say to the electors of Leicester East, “Thank you for sending me back for my seventh term”. It is good to see the House with so many new faces in it, and I particularly welcome the most diverse House of Commons that we have ever had, with more women and more members of the ethnic minority community than ever before. When my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and I were elected, there were only four MPs from the black and Asian minority communities; we now have 41, including the first woman of Asian origin ever elected in Scotland, the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh). I was about to say that she is sitting in her usual place, but that is, of course, usually the place of UKIP MPs—and we are delighted that she has taken it over. There are problems with seating, but we are very pleased to see her there.

This Queen’s Speech debate has been dominated by Europe and immigration. I agree with much of what the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) said about Europe, but not so much with what he said about immigration. I think the Government need to confront real problems on that issue. They made a start in the last Parliament. In the past, Labour Ministers have said “mea culpa” over the broken system that existed under successive Governments, both Labour and Conservative.

I was pleased when the last Government abolished the UK Border Agency—as a direct result, I should say, of recommendations made in the last Parliament by the Home Affairs Committee, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and others were members. The fact is, however, that while we can pass numerous Acts of Parliament in the House of Commons, we will have real problems if the system of enforcement does not work effectively. As I said to the Home Secretary earlier, only 3% of the allegations that are made about illegal migration result in deportation. I echo my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in saying that Labour Members will support the Government’s efforts to deal with illegal migration and abuse by passing new legislation, but we must have an enforcement system that works, and it must go beyond some of the initiatives that we saw five years ago.

I am particularly concerned about what is happening in the Mediterranean. I do not believe that the solution offered by the European Union—a quota system—is the answer. To my mind, the answer is to give a huge amount of support to the countries of the Maghreb, because that is where the problem lies. Last year, 92% of the people who entered Italy had come from Libya. Sometimes we have to step back and remember the way in which our foreign policy decisions affect countries, bearing in mind that it results in attempts by refugees and asylum seekers to come to western Europe.

Along with others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North, I went to Calais to see the large number of people who wished to come and settle in the United Kingdom. Many had paid up to €7,000 to people-traffickers in order to get to France, and they had one ambition: to come and live in the United Kingdom. It is far too late for us to deal with the situation in Calais. Even passing laws in the House will not deal with the problem; it must be dealt with on an EU basis, and that means that we must work with colleagues to deal with it at source. We must work with the transition countries, but we must also deal with the countries that are most affected by these crises.

In the last Parliament, the Home Secretary initiated a revolution in the landscape of policing. She is still in her job, and we shall be able to see whether that landscape has finally settled down. We hope very much that there will be no more change, because although change is sometimes very attractive, if we mess with the system any more, we shall see a great many disgruntled people operating in the system.

I am saddened to learn that Keith Bristow, whom the Home Secretary appointed to run the National Crime Agency, has just announced that he will stand down next year. A top cop who, when he was given the job, hoped that he would be there for a number of years to bed in the new agency is now going to leave. If policing is to be effective, we shall need to consider such personnel issues, and ensure that we carry the police force with us. I see that the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice is present. I am sure that he is in regular contact with all the stakeholders, but they have been through a great deal, and I think that we should now step back and ensure that the system beds in.

As for the question of the European Union, I am one of the Labour Members who feel that it is important to give the British people a choice in an in/out referendum. I am absolutely clear about how I will vote—I will vote to stay in the European Union—but I think that it was wrong for us to say, for years and years, that this House rather than the British people should make the decision. They now have a chance to make that decision, and my party is in favour of the referendum. We will support the Europe Bill that was included in the Gracious Speech.

However, I think that we should be careful with our use of the word “reform”. I know that the Prime Minister is busy this week—I believe that he will meet Angela Merkel tomorrow, he has already met the Danish Prime Minister, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, went to see him last Sunday—but we need the House to be involved in these decisions. I do not think that we can leave it entirely to the Prime Minister. It is not that I do not trust the Prime Minister—of course I do: he is the elected Prime Minister of this country—but I think that the House needs a say in what constitutes the reform agenda. It must be about more than just changing the benefits system; we need a fundamental reform of the way in which the EU performs its business.

To assist that process, I think that we need Members such as the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) and the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), as well as Opposition Members, to contribute their views on how the reform agenda can be developed. If that happens, the British people will see this as a genuine negotiation. The worst possible outcome for the Government would be a belief that the only purpose was to have a referendum, and that the matter would then be settled for a generation. If we take a proper, thorough look at the way in which the institutions operate, the British people will be satisfied that we have done a good job.

I saw no reference in the Queen’s Speech to our relations with India. I think that the way in which we have developed relations with the second-most populous country on earth has been particularly successful under successive Governments, and I therefore think it important for us to invite the Prime Minister of India, Mr Modi, to visit Britain. I hope that that is on the Government’s agenda, although it was not in the Queen’s Speech. The official visits have already been announced—it is the President of China who is coming—but I think that we ought to adopt an even-handed approach to China and India, given that they represent two-sixths of humanity.

Finally, let me say something about the national health service. As some Members will know, I suffer from type 2 diabetes. I know that you have a particular interest in the subject as well, Mr Deputy Speaker, for I have attended many meetings with you. Apparently we are going to increase the NHS budget. I want it to increase in support of preventive work on diabetes, given that 700,000 people in the country have diabetes but are entirely unaware of it. They include many members of the south-east Asian community, and many members of other communities. Unless we provide preventive care, the cost to the NHS will be even greater than the 10% of the budget that we are currently spending. We are spending so much money on an area of health policy that we cannot reverse, while we could be helping to prevent those with diabetes from acquiring the most serious strain, and even helping to put off the advent of diabetes for years.

Those are some of the issues that I hope the House will be able to debate and develop during the year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about proceeding on the basis of the evidence. I am grateful for his comments about remarks that I made earlier today about the necessity for us to develop a wider partnership to counter extremism across its broadest spectrum so that we can deal with the hateful beliefs that the extremists are propagating.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I too welcome the Home Secretary’s comments in her speech this morning. Only by working with communities are we able to tackle this problem. I also commend the Metropolitan police and Turkish authorities for bringing back to London the three young men from Brent. It is sad that we missed the opportunity of doing this with the four young girls from Bethnal Green. What is the message to families to get them to report areas of concern so that they do not feel stigmatised if they do so?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments about my speech. He is right. As I made clear in that speech, Government cannot deal with this alone; we need to work with families, communities and civil society. The message that the Government have given to families consistently in relation to those who might be travelling to Syria to get involved in terrorist-related activity, or to be with terrorist groups, is that the sooner they can give information to the authorities, the easier it is to work with them to ensure that their young people are not put into that danger.

Counter-Terrorism (Statutory Instruments)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

rose—

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert).

[James Brokenshire]

Our action reflected the recommendations of the commissioner himself. They were our lead and our guide. My hon. Friend will note, however, that the code of practice contains additional protections covering the consideration and assessment that must be undertaken by those who seek to make a request for communications data in respect of certain protected groups. An enhanced status has been conferred, in a number of ways.

[Keith Vaz]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

I will, of course, give way to the right hon. Gentleman, to whom I meant no discourtesy by not giving way to him first.

[Keith Vaz]

I am delighted that the Minister chose the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) over me, because there is not a cigarette paper between us when it comes to these issues.

I warmly welcome the Minister’s decision, which was recommended by the Home Affairs Committee, but may I press him to go a little further? We also recommended a fundamental review of the operation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, because we felt that it was time for that to happen.

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that David Anderson, the independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, is examining the RIPA issue very keenly. We await his report, which we expect to be completed before May and which I sincerely believe will help to inform further consideration of the Act during the next Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman will also know that the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 has an end date of 31 December 2016, which means that Parliament will have to return to the issue—informed, I am sure, not only by the independent reviewer’s report, but by that of the Select Committee.

[James Brokenshire]

I assure my right hon. Friend, whom I congratulate on becoming a member of the Privy Council, that the matter will be kept under close scrutiny and review. We have published draft clauses, which could be enacted quickly in the next Parliament, to regularise the position. We recognise that this is an interim measure, and we want it to be enshrined in primary legislation that the House would have a full opportunity to debate. I should add that the code of practice provides for requests to be flagged up to the commissioner, and thus allows additional scrutiny to take place. I hope that that reassures my right hon. Friend.

The commissioner also recommended further changes to the guidance in the acquisition code, and we have sought to implement that recommendation. The code is now clear about the need to consider more than rights to privacy—in particular, the right to freedom of expression must be taken into account when that is appropriate—and it also contains new guidance on the considerations of necessity, proportionality and collateral intrusion, including unintended consequences.

The revised acquisition code enhances the operational independence of the authorising officer from the specific investigation for which communications data are required. It includes new, enhanced protections for those who may have professional duties of confidentiality or privilege. However, it is important to remember that we are debating communications data, not the content of communications.

The retention code sets out how the Government implement the requirements in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 and the Data Retention Regulations 2014. It covers the following issues: the review, variation and revocation of data retention notices; communications service providers’ ability to recover their costs; data security; oversight by the Information Commissioner and safeguards on the disclosure; and the use of retained data by communications service providers.

The House will be aware that both codes underwent public consultation. The Government received about 300 submissions from organisations and individuals suggesting amendments and providing comments on the codes. I am grateful to all who took part. We have published a summary of the submissions received and how the Government have responded to them. The Department considered all the responses to the consultation and many of the suggestions have been adopted in the final drafts.

I would like to address briefly the final instrument in this motion: the Authority to Carry (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015. They establish a penalty regime for breach of any requirement of the authority to carry scheme 2015, which this House approved on 10 March. A carrier may be liable to a penalty for breach of the following: a requirement to seek authority to carry a person; a requirement to provide specified information by a specified time; a requirement to provide information in a specified manner and form; a requirement to be able to receive communications in a specified manner and form; or a requirement not to carry a person when authority to carry has been refused—this is an important part of the code.

The scheme specifies that it is the requirements set out in detailed written notices issued to carriers under the Immigration Act 1971 or the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 that must be met under the scheme, rather than those requirements being specified in detail in the scheme itself.

[Keith Vaz]

Does the Minister have figures showing how many airlines continued to carry passengers when the authorities—the Minister, the police or some other authority—required them not to carry those passengers?

[James Brokenshire]

The pre-existing authority to carry scheme has been used to prevent people from being able to travel to this country. It is important to note that the revised scheme deals with outbound as well as inbound, so this is an enhancement of the existing arrangements. Unfortunately, for operational reasons I cannot comment in detail on the use of the scheme, but I can say that requests have been made and carriers have abided by those requests to prevent people from travelling to this country. Therefore we have shown utility from the existing scheme on inbound legs, which is the point of the existing arrangement, but we are now seeking to extend it further in terms of various additional requirements, as well as also dealing with the outbound leg.

[Keith Vaz]

We know of the Minister’s eloquence when asked questions by Members in this House and in the Select Committee, but he did not really give me an answer. I am not after answers on operational decisions; I want to know how many times an airline has carried when we have asked it not to carry—I do not think that that would give away any state secrets about who those people were. It is a simple matter of, “Does he know the answer? If not, will he write to us?”

[James Brokenshire]

I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the circumstances he describes have, certainly to my knowledge, never occurred. We would not wish to see that happen. That underlines the purpose and utility of having the authority to carry scheme in place, but we think it important to have a penalty in place none the less. We clearly have a scheme that sets out those requirements, but it needs to have enforcement and the ability to rely on that to ensure that there is good compliance with the scheme.

As I have described, a carrier may be liable to a penalty for breach of a requirement. The scheme specifies that it is the requirements set out in detailed written notices issued to carriers under the Immigration Act 1971 or the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 that must be met under the scheme, rather than those requirements being specified in detail in the scheme itself.

The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has reported these regulations to the House and drawn specific attention to them. It considers that the scheme imposes some requirements

“under which the relevant matters are all to be particularised subsequently in a way that is left unspecified in the Scheme itself”.

That is correct. The scheme identifies that the detailed specifications are in the requirements imposed on carriers under the 1971 Act or the 2006 Act. Carriers subject to specific requirements to provide information under the 1971 Act or the 2006 Act fully understand the information they are required to provide, the time or times at which it should be provided and the form and manner in which the information should be provided and received. In doing so, they comply with the scheme.

These measures are not about penalising carriers. The Government work with carriers to ensure the safety of their passengers and crew, the security of their aircraft, ships and trains and the security of the United Kingdom. However, there is a need for a civil penalty regime when carriers fail, without reasonable excuse, to comply with requirements of the authority to carry scheme. When a carrier fails to comply, we should have the ability to impose an appropriate penalty up to a maximum of £50,000. That is particularly the case if the failure results in a carrier’s bringing someone to the UK, or carrying someone from the UK, whom they had been or would have been expressly refused authority to carry. It is worth noting that these aspects of the regulations were not criticised by the Joint Committee.

The two communications data codes of practice outline best practice and ensure that the right safeguards are in place concerning access to, and retention of, communications data. It is important that we bring them into force by the end of this Parliament. The authority to carry scheme civil penalties regime will ensure that carriers comply with requirements imposed on them to prevent and disrupt travel by individuals who pose a threat to the public or, in the circumstances of children travelling to Syria, who are putting themselves at risk. I urge right hon. and hon. Members to approve these important statutory instruments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I shall be brief. It seems clear that the House will approve the orders moved by the Minister today. He began by putting the situation and the reasons behind the orders in context. He knows, as Security Minister, that the country faces a severe threat.

Last week, the Select Committee on Home Affairs, in one of our last sessions of this Parliament, heard the evidence of the relatives of Shamima, Amira and Khadiza, three young ladies aged 16, 15 and 15 who left Tower Hamlets and went to Syria. Only this morning, I met the families of two of the young men who have just returned from Istanbul. The families are wonderful people, hard working and dedicated to this country, and were as shocked as any of us would have been that their children had left the country and, in the case of the girls from Tower Hamlets, reached Syria and, in the case of the three young men, been brought back yesterday. I commend the police for their work, and the Turkish authorities in the latter case.

The Turkish ambassador gave us very good evidence last week, with a timeline. The situation was much better second time around, with phone calls being made instead of e-mails being sent. We need to commend people when things go right and this is a good news story in the fight against terrorism. We do not have many of them, but everyone worked together and we commend them for what they are doing.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I am sure that we would all endorse what my right hon. Friend says and what the Minister said about the Turkish police and ensuring that the young people involved were returned to this country immediately. I cannot go further than that, as the Minister has stated. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to probe further, even though the numbers are very small, and ask why it is that young people like those he mentioned, whose relatives we saw in the Home Affairs Committee last week, should wish to join a group motivated by mass murder, savage beatings, beheadings and sex slavery? More needs to be done to find the reasons why such youngsters, born and educated in this country, should wish to travel in the way they intended.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Committee has taken evidence from all the stakeholders involved, but it is the people who have gone abroad who really matter as we need to find out why they went in the first place. We need to get into their minds in some way, as he has said and as his questions in the Committee’s evidence sessions have tried to do, to find out why they make that decision, what turns them and what the tipping point is. They are brought up in this country, and by parents who obviously love and support them, but then suddenly they decide to go abroad. If I have one regret from all my years of chairing the Committee, it is that we have never been able to take evidence directly from those who have gone abroad. Some have come back, of course, but they are reluctant to talk to us, either formally or informally. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think that why people decide to go is something that successor Committees and the next Parliament will have to consider.

On the orders before the House, I fully support the instrument that brings into force the code of practice to enhance safeguards and ensure clear guidance on best practice with regard to the acquisition and retention of communications data. When the Committee took evidence from journalists on the matter—this is in the public domain, of course—we said that we believed there ought to be exceptions. The Government accept that the authorities need to be very careful when they stray into areas relating to freedom of the press. I think that the code does provide for that, so the Government are right to bring it before the House now rather than at some later date.

However, the Committee, in looking at the regulations before the House, strongly suggested that RIPA’s days had come and gone. Although it was acceptable at the time to pass that legislation, we felt that, frankly, it was being misused. Anecdotally, we have head about some local authorities using the powers in RIPA to spy on families deciding where to send their children to school. We felt that such misuse was probably going on in other areas, but we did not know because there was no proper and effective monitoring.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I think the Minister has done an excellent job in bringing on side some of us who were not as supportive of these proposals as others, but I am still concerned about the number of organisations that will be able to use DRIPA to access information. Does the right hon. Gentleman know how many such organisations there are?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to be wary of that. I do not know how many other organisations can do that, and I think that there is a lack of monitoring. When Parliament passes legislation for a specific purpose and it is then used for other purposes—journalists say that this could be used to spy on them, for example, thereby giving up vital information about sources—parliamentarians need to pause and reconsider, and I think that is what we have to do. As he will know, given his great experience in home affairs matters, having in a previous life been so intimate with the workings of the Liverpool passport office, the state’s use of these powers does tend to creep. We need to ensure that we are vigilant in that regard.

The Minister says that he is waiting for David Anderson to report. One way of ensuring that David Anderson does a quicker job is to give him more resources. One of the things the Select Committee has noted is that the independent assessor does not have the kinds of resources that we would have expected. If the Government—whoever is in power after 7 May—help him along his path, we may be able to get a result much more quickly. We would therefore get the review of RIPA, which I think the whole House wants. The Prime Minister certainly wants it, from what I have heard him say about it. I hope we will be able to move that forward.

Finally, on the last set of regulations before the House, the Authority to Carry Scheme (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015, I have no problem in principle with what the Minister proposes, but he told the House, in effect, that the situation in which these would take effect has never arisen—that a carrier, having been asked not to carry, has defied Government, either inbound or outbound, and said, “We are going to carry this person.” It was the previous Government who introduced the carriers’ liability regulations. I probably voted for the measure at the time—I cannot remember as it was so long ago. It was effective because the carrier tends not to put someone on a plane if that person has been told on departure from another country that they do not have the requisite visa to enter the United Kingdom, as it is the carrier that will pay the fine.

There is nothing wrong with the principle, but we should legislate when we know that there is a problem. We finally got out of the Minister the fact that there has never been a situation where that has happened, so here we are, passing legislation to stop something that has never happened. His argument is that it is important to have that power in the back pocket because we never know when we might need it. It is important for the Minister to be able to wave it in front of carriers and say, “If you don’t do this, you will be fined.”

My objection to civil penalties is that the amount collected by the Government is lamentably small. To save us having to table parliamentary questions, as we are right at the end of this Parliament and we might not get the answers before we rise, I hope that the Minister will give us some figures when he winds up showing the percentage of civil penalty fines that have not been paid by those who are subject to them. I think unpaid fines owed to the Home Office will run into millions of pounds. The last time I looked, it was a pretty high figure.

All I ask the Minister to do is to reassure the House that he is a good collector of those penalties—not the hon. Gentleman personally, but his Department. I am sure that if he knocked on my door and asked for the penalty to be paid, I would pay it immediately. He is such a nice and charming man that I would cough up immediately, but we cannot spare the Minister for Security and Immigration for that kind of work. Others have to do it, or sometimes it is done by letter. All that happens is that the letter is put to one side. Perhaps he will have the figure for the amount of uncollected civil penalties currently owed to the Home Office. If it does not run into millions, I will buy him dinner in the Members Dining Room before the House rises on 30 March. On that cheerful note, I will finish my contribution.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will try to respond to as many as possible of the various points that have been raised during this helpful debate.

Let me at the outset welcome the support that right hon. and hon. Members have given to these statutory instruments, even if, in a number of cases, they feel that further work may be required. Further debate and discussion is taking place about the communications data aspects and the report by David Anderson. I can tell the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, that David Anderson remains on course to report on time before 1 May. I underline the fact that the new privacy and civil liberties oversight board will give further support to David Anderson in his important work, which the right hon. Gentleman and many others in the House recognise in terms of the contribution that he makes.

The right hon. Gentleman highlighted the case of the three schoolgirls who travelled from London to Syria and the evidence that his Committee took last week. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the specifics of that recent case, not least because the investigation is still ongoing. He rightly underlines the huge distress that is caused to families by these cases. We hope that this matter can be resolved and that the girls are able to return home to their families as soon as possible. I know that the whole House would wish to underline that.

There are continuing issues on which we need to challenge ourselves as regards why people seek to travel in this way. As the evidence that has been provided to various Committees indicates, it is a complicated picture featuring the impact of social media, peers, and other influences. That is why, as a Government, we have taken a very broad view in recognising the responsibilities that we all hold in seeking to prevent people from travelling and becoming involved in terrorist-related activity. We will be able to return to this again next week, I hope, when we look at further instruments and guidance that may need to be considered further before the House rises.

[Keith Vaz]

I look forward to looking at the Minister’s further instruments when they become available for scrutiny.

On the point about communities and families, having looked carefully at this subject, the lesson that the Committee has learned over the past 10 days is that they should not be afraid to come forward and speak to the authorities, because the authorities will deal with them sympathetically and they will not be stigmatised. We are all in this together to fight those who seek to seduce and groom young men and women and take them out of our country.

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point that I entirely endorse. Indeed, that is why the Home Office has been keen to support initiatives such as that advanced by Families Against Stress and Trauma, which has campaigned to highlight the need to come forward and report to the authorities or to others who may be able to take action to safeguard and prevent such actions.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) raised again the position of journalists in relation to communications data. He and I have rightly debated that on a number of occasions in this House. He, and others, may not feel that this is the final settled picture. As I have said, we recognise that this matter needs to be further regularised in primary legislation, and we hope that the House will be able to return to it swiftly after the general election. In his report, the commissioner said that there had been no abuse, in relation to his investigations and his inquiry, into the manner in which communications data requests are made of journalists. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that we should ensure that there is continuing dialogue on this matter.

The draft clauses, and our desire to receive feedback on them, provide a further opportunity for those channels to be kept open. Although the House will head into purdah and Dissolution shortly, I hope communication will be maintained with officials to ensure that, when this House returns, the next Government can move forward quickly in the light not only of David Anderson’s report, but of the feedback we receive on the draft clauses. I hope that reassures the hon. Gentleman.

I will go through as many as possible of the points raised by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), whose broad support I welcome. As the explanatory notes make clear, a full regulatory impact assessment was made of the effect of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 and the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

On the difference between the consultative code and the final version, the key changes include the introduction of the requirements for law enforcement to use the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to acquire communications data in order to determine journalistic sources. Other changes include greater clarity on the additional consideration for those in sensitive professions and increased guidance on the necessity and proportionality that must be met by all applications for communications data. I assure the hon. Lady that we reflected carefully on the submissions. The codes reflect all recent primary legislation, but, as she will appreciate, if significant changes are made to primary legislation in the future, new codes may be required.

We do not provide details of which companies are the subject of data retention notices nor the detail of those notices, as it could be of considerable benefit to terrorists and other criminals if they knew which companies were under the data retention obligations, and they could adjust their behaviour accordingly. That is why we have maintained a consistent stance.

The responses to the public consultation have been published on the Home Office website and we have written to the Chairs of the relevant parliamentary Committees. I am sorry if the hon. Lady was not able to locate them and I am happy to write to her to point her directly to them, because I specifically made sure that they were published in advance of today’s debate. I am disappointed that she has not been able to locate them, which is what I wanted her to be able to do.

[James Brokenshire]

All I can say is that the consultation responses were published. I note the hon. Lady’s challenge and I will certainly point her in the right direction.

On 4 February the interception of communications commissioner reported on the issue of journalists’ material. We are introducing the codes as quickly as possible to give as full effect as we can to the commissioner’s recommendations. Frankly, we do not believe it would be appropriate to wait. The hon. Lady asked why we are doing it now and in this way. It is being done in this way to ensure that the codes and safeguards are put in place as quickly as possible. I judged that it was right to do the initial consultation and get feedback even though we knew that the commissioner was due to report, because if we had waited for the commissioner’s response and then done a full consultation on the full code, we would not be in the position we are in today. I think that was the right approach.

The hon. Lady also asked technical questions about social media. The provisions apply to relevant communications data generated or processed in the UK by communications service providers. The codes of practice give some examples of the data to be retained and the way in which the CSPs build their systems. The communications data generated differ among CSPs and the services they provide. It is important that the Government can work with providers to ensure that appropriate data are retained. The code provides that the Home Office may give further guidance to those implementing the requirements. In other words, there can be further drill-down to give further specificity. The Home Office works closely with providers to ensure that it is aware of future technological changes that may lead to a review of a data retention notice. I will reflect further on the points made by the hon. Lady and place any additional information in the Library.

Finally, the £50,000 maximum penalty for failing to comply with the requirement under the authority to carry scheme reflects the seriousness attached to a carrier bringing someone into the UK or taking someone out of the UK when refused the authority to do so. I certainly hear the point made by the right hon. Member for Leicester East when he asked why we should have a penalty if compliance is already enforced. Now that we are extending the scheme to both inbound and outbound carrying, having looked at different aspects of it under the code and reflected on the issues raised, it is appropriate to have a penalty or sanction to encourage and promote the positive behaviour that right hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and I want. We have brought in the penalty in that spirit.

[Keith Vaz]

The Minister is always generous in giving way, which helps the scrutiny of such measures. I am sorry if I missed this, but did he give the House a figure for how much is owed to the Home Office in civil penalties in total? I am eager to take him for supper before we close on 30 March.

[James Brokenshire]

I would tell the right hon. Gentleman that in respect of that particular provision—[Interruption.] I will come to his point. In respect of that provision, we clearly do not want there to be any unpaid penalties; we want compliance and therefore for penalties not to be levied in the first place. We are putting the penalty in place in that spirit of good compliance.

I normally try my best to meet the right hon. Gentleman’s requests for information as soon as possible, but I am afraid that I will have to disappoint him on this occasion. I note his request for the details of the various civil penalties levied under the civil penalties scheme, and I will certainly take it away and see what further information I can give him to assuage his clear desire for it.

With those comments, and given the broad welcome that the House has given to the measures, I hope that the House will be minded to support them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications Data: Code of Practice) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 4 March, be approved.

Investigatory Powers

Resolved,

That the draft Retention of Communications Data (Code of Practice) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 4 March, be approved.—(James Brokenshire.)

Immigration

Resolved,

That the draft Authority to Carry Scheme (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 March, be approved.—(James Brokenshire.)

Yarl’s Wood

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

Detention is an important part of a firm but fair immigration system. It is right that those with no right to remain in the UK are returned to their home country if they will not leave voluntarily, but a sense of fairness must always be at the heart of our immigration system, including for those we are removing from the UK. That is why the allegations made by Channel 4 about Serco staff at Yarl’s Wood are serious and deeply concerning, it is why they required an immediate response to address them, and it is why the Government have ensured that that is being done.

All immigration removal centres are subject to the detention centre rules approved by this House in 2001. Those rules, and further operational guidance, set out the standards that we all expect to ensure that the safety and dignity of detainees is upheld. No form of discrimination is tolerated. In addition to the rules, removal centres are subject to regular independent inspections by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons and by independent monitoring boards that publish their findings. The chairman of the independent monitoring board for Yarl’s Wood is Mary Coussey, the former independent race monitor. The most recent inspection by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons found Yarl’s Wood to be a safe and respectful centre that is continuing to improve. The last annual report of the independent monitoring board commented positively on the emphasis placed on purposeful activities within the centre and the expansion of welfare provision, and raised no concerns about safety. None the less, the Home Office expects the highest levels of integrity and professionalism from all its contractors and takes any allegations of misconduct extremely seriously. As soon as we were made aware of the recent allegations, Home Office officials visited Yarl’s Wood to secure assurances that all detainees were being treated in a safe and dignified manner.

The director general of immigration enforcement has written to Serco making our expectations about its response to these allegations very clear. We told Serco that it must act quickly and decisively to eradicate the kinds of attitudes that appear to have been displayed by its staff. Serco immediately suspended one member of staff who could be identified from information available before the broadcast, and has suspended another having seen the footage. The company has also commissioned an independent review of its culture and staffing at Yarl’s Wood. This will be conducted for Serco by Kate Lampard, who, as the House will be aware, recently produced the “lessons learned” review of the Jimmy Savile inquiries for the Department of Health. However, more needs to be done. The Home Office has made it clear that we expect to see the swift and comprehensive introduction of body-worn cameras for staff at Yarl’s Wood. In addition, we have discussed with Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons how he might provide further independent assurance.

This Government have a proud record of working to protect vulnerable people in detention. We have reviewed the Mental Health Act 1983 and set out proposals for legislative change as a result; held a summit on policing and mental health, highlighting in particular the concerns of black and ethnic minority people; and commissioned Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to undertake a review of vulnerable people in police custody that will be published shortly. Before these allegations were made, the Home Secretary commissioned Stephen Shaw, the former prisons and probation ombudsman for England and Wales, to lead an independent review of welfare in the whole immigration detention estate. We will of course invite him to consider these allegations as part of that overarching review.

This country has a long tradition of tolerance and respect for human rights. Detaining those with no right to remain here and who refuse to leave voluntarily is key to maintaining an effective immigration system. But we are clear that all detainees must be treated with dignity and respect. We will accept nothing but the highest standards from those to whom we entrust the responsibility of their care.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question and the Minister for her answer and her explanation of why the Minister for Security and Immigration is not here today. I am very pleased to see the two local MPs, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) and the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller).

Channel 4’s film on Yarl’s Wood, shown last night, revealed shocking footage about the detention centre, which has been under heavy criticism for the treatment of its 400 detainees since 2001. What was uncovered was deeply disturbing. Serious questions were raised over standards of health care in Yarl’s Wood. What was detailed included examples of self-harm by detainees, including three women who jumped from the stairs and people slashing their wrists in an attempt not to be removed. It took a freedom of information request to reveal that there were 74 separate incidents of self-harm needing medical treatment at the centre in 2013. Guards who appeared in the footage merely dismissed information about people harming themselves as “attention seeking”. Will the Minister explain why her ministerial colleague, Lord Bates, told Parliament on 24 February that there had been no serious incidents of self-harm taking place in the past two years?

Arguably the most concerning element was the contempt that was shown for detainees through the use of racist, sexist and generally abusive and degrading language. We saw a guard advocating violence towards a person who was detained there. One guard said:

“Headbutt the bitch…I’d beat her up.”

Another was recorded as saying:

“They’re animals. They’re beasties. They’re all animals. Caged animals. Take a stick with you and beat them up.”

These are appalling statements that should never be tolerated by anybody, particularly from employees of a company in receipt of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Yarl’s Wood is not a prison but an immigration centre that has a duty to protect some of the most vulnerable, who are in most cases escaping violence and instability in their countries of origin in search of a better life. Frankly, some are there because the Home Office has taken such a long time to deal with their cases. Instead of being protected, detainees are verbally abused and poorly treated.

This is not the first time that Yarl’s Wood has been the subject of parliamentary criticism. The Home Affairs Committee has been highly critical of the centre’s performance following damning reports of sexual misconduct and excessively long detentions. Of course I welcome the suspension of one of the people involved, and the fact that an independent inquiry is to be established, but the Minister is absolutely right that more needs to be done. We need a timetable for that inquiry. Will she send in her inspectors not just to visit but to write a report having spoken to detainees?

Has the Minister spoken to Rupert Soames, the chief executive of Serco, to express the Government’s concern? Serco’s right to bid for other contracts should be suspended pending any review. Despite reports of catastrophic failings in November last year, Serco was awarded an eight-year, £70 million contract at Yarl’s Wood. Will the Minister look at her procurement processes? All of Serco’s contracts should be reviewed immediately. The Select Committee has recommended in the past that those who fail the taxpayer should be put on a register and should not be given any other contracts. Only a few months ago, the Lord Chancellor sent in the Serious Fraud Office in order to discover why Serco had overcharged the taxpayer by £70 million.

I agree with the Minister that this treatment is inhumane. The United Kingdom has a reputation as a world leader in human rights—that is clear from the number of people who risk their lives to come here—and we simply cannot allow this behaviour to continue in a centre that has a duty to protect them.

[Karen Bradley]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, for all that he and his Committee have done over many years to highlight problems in immigration detention centres. In 2009, his Committee reported specifically on UK Border Agency immigration detention centres, and this Government legislated to implement its recommendations.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are all shocked and appalled by the evidence we have seen, and action must be taken. Hon. Members should be under no illusions: this Government are breathing down the neck of Serco, and we want to see action swiftly.

The right hon. Gentleman said that one person has been suspended. In fact, one person was suspended before the broadcast. We were unable to see the programme before it was broadcast, but on the basis of evidence available before the broadcast, one person was suspended. Another has since been suspended, and I know that Serco will shortly look at whether to suspend others.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to a comment about self-harm by my colleague the noble Lord Bates in the other place. In fact, Lord Bates said that there were no cases of suicide or attempted suicide in Yarl’s Wood, and that is correct. There is evidence of self-harm, which we take extremely seriously, but there have been no suicides or attempted suicides.

The right hon. Gentleman said that the language and behaviour of the staff is completely and totally inappropriate. Hon. Members should be in no doubt that this Government and this House take that very seriously. The message to Serco is that this needs to be sorted out and needs to be sorted out quickly.

Counter-Terrorism: Conflict Zones

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I accept my hon. Friend’s point. Indeed, as others have said, including Helen Ball in her interview yesterday, there are other reasons why restraint should be applied, and they include when there are ongoing investigations and when there may be a risk to life involved.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Home Secretary has heard the anguished pleas of the parents of Shamina, Kadiza and Amira, the three London schoolgirls who have left this country. They left on the Tuesday, but the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey says that the Turkish authorities in Istanbul were not informed until three days later. I accept that the embassy in London may have been alerted, but this is something that should have gone straight to Istanbul. Will she look again at the circumstances so that we know exactly what the facts are, and will she look at a recommendation made by the Home Affairs Committee, which is that police spotters need to be placed in Istanbul, a destination of concern, so that immediate action can be taken if young girls disappear in this way?

[Mrs May]

I always look with great care at the recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee. The Metropolitan police have been absolutely clear about the date and time at which they alerted the Turkish authorities to the girls going missing. There is concern over this matter. Sadly, we have seen, over time, an increasing number of women and girls going to Syria, alongside the men and the younger boys. This is an ongoing matter, which is why Home Office officials have been talking to Turkish airlines about these issues. I will meet the Transport Secretary to see whether further arrangements can be put in place to ensure that we do not see other families facing the same trauma and stress.