EU Referendum: Race Hate Crime

Debate between Keith Vaz and Catherine West

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). She is a passionate advocate on behalf of the downtrodden and all those whose rights need to be exercised in this country. She had a long career outside this House as an international barrister and she has shown a passionate commitment to the cause of justice in this House, serving on the Justice Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and now the Foreign Affairs Committee. She has reminded us all of the huge contribution that has been made by the migrant community to our country.

I have to declare an interest as a first generation migrant. I arrived here from Aden in Yemen at the age of nine. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) is also my sister and we do not normally sit together in this House. We try to sit apart. Some people mistake her for my daughter—nobody thinks I am her father, which is a good thing. We are sitting together in solidarity today, because we think this is a really important issue and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East is right to raise it. We came to this country and we can remember the speech made in 1968 by Enoch Powell, which cast a shadow over a whole generation.

The good thing about this place is that when we have discussed race issues, no matter what happened in the referendum campaign and the words my hon. Friend quoted, there is an all-party consensus about the contribution of the migrant community and the diversity of Britain. As I said to the Prime Minister last week, he has constructed the most diverse Government in the history of the Conservative party, with more women and more ethnic minorities sitting in the Cabinet and the Government. Labour did the same thing when we were in office.

How do we translate the huge achievements of the migrant community and get everyone, including the media, to understand that they are a force for good? It means talking them up, but it also means that when the chips are down we defend them, support them and stand up for them. I was so pleased to hear what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. I have been to his constituency and I know his commitment to different communities. Northern Ireland has different issues, but he has always supported all his constituents equally, as we all do. How do we, as parliamentarians, translate that contribution and get that message across to the public? That is the problem we face.

The problem is very stark. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East, today I received a letter from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. The figures in that letter are shocking: an increase from 20 to 60 hate crime incidents every single day. The number of hate crime incidents between the day after the referendum, 24 June, and Tuesday 28 June was 232 in the Metropolitan police area alone. We do not know the figures for the rest of the country. A lot of people do not want to report these crimes: as with any crimes, including crimes against women, people do not want to report them. The figures represent the number of reported incidents only. I would imagine that the number of hate crime incidents is even greater.

[Catherine West]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a real issue around reporting such crimes, in particular in schools? Young children do not really understand what it means when another child says, “You’ve got to go home now,” and how that can be reported and linked in with police officers within the school context.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and as the former leader of a council she will know the importance of starting at a very young age. That is the impressionable age and that is where we need to begin the dialogue. That is where we need to show these positive images. We all represent constituencies with ethnic minority communities. It is important that that exposure happens at a very early stage.

The referendum polarised opinions. I, of course, voted for remain. I say of course, because under the previous Labour Government I was a Minister for Europe. There were many Ministers for Europe under the Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. One of my jobs, when I was appointed by Tony Blair, was to go to the eastern European countries and prepare them for enlargement. His first words to me were, “Get closer to them than the French and the Germans.” I did and I travelled a lot: I made 54 visits in two years. I went to eastern Europe, having never visited before, and it was a revelation. We should say in the House how pleased we are with the contribution that eastern European communities have made to our country. People are surprised to hear that the figure is 3 million. I do not think that one can tell, because these are the hardest-working communities, they contribute in each and every constituency, and they make the lives of our citizens better.

I was shocked to hear not just about the incidents recounted by hon. Members or about the crimes committed but about how social attitudes have changed because of the referendum. It has changed not just the political make-up of our country—with so many party leaders resigning within days of the referendum—but attitudes. That is why last Sunday, with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), I went to Ealing Broadway—not Leicester but Ealing Broadway, Ealing being the centre of the Polish community in London—and sat through a Polish mass at the Church of Our Lady Mother of the Church. It was the first Polish mass I had been to since I was Minister for Europe and I went to a mass in Piekary Slaskie in Poland.

At the end of the mass, I was asked to address the congregation, and I reminded them of the great affection we all felt for the contribution made by the Polish and other communities that have come here as a result of enlargement. When I went outside, an elderly Polish gentleman came up to me and said, “I have to tell you what happened the day after the referendum. I go to an elderly persons’ lunch club. When I went in, I was told by the person who runs it that, because of the referendum vote, I was not allowed to have lunch with the other people.” If I had not heard this myself, I would not have believed it. I represent probably the most multi-racial constituency of anyone sitting here, and I have never heard such a thing from members of the British Asian community. Yet here was I, in the middle of Ealing, hearing this from an elderly Polish gentleman who had lived all his life in this country—Polish migration began at the time of the second world war.

What starts with a social attitude or a speech, whether at school—as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West)—or among the general migrant community, ends up with a hate crime and violence. That is what we need to guard against.

Yemen

Debate between Keith Vaz and Catherine West

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to be here for my first debate with you in the Chair, Mr Turner? I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for securing the debate and bringing the situation in Yemen to our attention. Many of us across the House have spoken on this issue in the past, including the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) and my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger). It is an important issue.

My own research has brought to light what Mr Adam Baron of the European Council on Foreign Relations said—that in the end, all Yemenis will be the victims of such a protracted war and that

“The truth…is that no one is winning this war. And while all parties involved in Yemen seem far from reaching their goals, there is one clear loser: the Yemeni people.”

That sentiment has been strongly reflected in our debate this afternoon, focusing on the humanitarian aspects of the situation and joining with the UN special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who said in March this year that Yemen was being brought to the edge of civil war. I believe that even since March, the situation has deteriorated.

We know from various groups that are active in Yemen—where they can get into Yemen, if the ports are not blocked—that there are big problems of food poverty and a real risk of massive malnutrition. There are problems with access to clean water and the availability of crucial medicines, but that is not all; we are also aware of the lack of the rule of law, which of course leads to risks in particular of violence against women, as well as of other crimes going undetected. I wish to mention in particular the assault on Taiz, where the number of people in critical need of safe drinking water surpassed 3.3 million in September to October, according to World Health Organisation reports. UNICEF has said:

“If there isn’t the humanitarian support to the country, in six months or a year’s time, you will get a major humanitarian crisis”.

That point has been covered very well during the debate, so I will now press the Minister for his response on some important matters.

First, will the Minister comment on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) about the need for an independent assessment of the situation, in particular in relation to the coalition and the bombing campaign? Will he assure hon. Members that we are doing everything possible both to call for a ceasefire and to support everyone involved to get round the table and seek that ceasefire? Secondly—I know this is a concern for all citizens—will he give an assurance that armaments produced in the UK are not being used in the conflict to bring harm to civilians, women and children in Yemen?

Through treaties, UN declarations and work across the globe, we have come miles in the past 20 years on the issue of child soldiers. We know that once children are involved in conflict, it leads to conflict for generations. Will the Minister give us an assurance that he and his Department are doing all they can, with others, to stop the use of child soldiers in Yemen?

Will the Minister update us on other conversations that may be happening and that he is able to make public today? What pressure is he bringing to bear on the various parties involved in the conflict? We know that, because of our history with regard to Yemen—that has been eloquently described in today’s debate—Britain has a lot of influence. How is that influence being used for a positive solution, which many people are pushing us for? The Prime Minister said that he lent his “firm political support” to airstrikes earlier this year. Does that remain the case? Do the Government feel that this action is still effective or that it is worsening the situation? There are no real winners in this situation, so will the Minister tell us what support we are providing, as a nation, in relation to this conflict?

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on making her maiden Front-Bench speech. It would be good to have her support on British citizens who are still in Yemen and cannot come out, for whatever reason. Other Governments—the Indian Government, for example—have sent in aircraft to take their citizens out, but at the moment British citizens have to go to Somalia and on occasion through Djibouti to get back to the UK. Does she agree that if British citizens want to return, it is important that they are helped to do so as quickly as possible?

[Catherine West]

I do indeed. I also support the point made by other Members about resolving asylum cases in the UK; it seems perverse that we could be returning people to the Yemen in the current climate. Will the Minister cover those issues in his remarks?

To sum up, we are asking that the Government work much more energetically towards immediate negotiations without preconditions, following our support on paper for UN Security Council resolution 2216. Secondly, we ask for clarification on how much support the Government are able to give the UN special envoy—their support seems a little cool at the moment. Thirdly, will the Minister give us evidence of his activity and achievements, as well as those of his Department, in behind-the-scenes discussions? We need much more of a push on that. There needs to be an end to the recruitment and fielding of child soldiers, given the long-term implications of using children as soldiers in conflicts. I conclude by reminding Members that at this point we must not think too much about our strategic situation—although that does sometimes get lost—but about those people to whom we have a duty as human beings. We know that no one is winning this war, so we must reach out, unlock the humanitarian aid waiting at the ports, and do as much as we can to end this terrible conflict.

Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Debate between Keith Vaz and Catherine West

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), who began and ended his speech with a call for unity, reminding Members that we have heard some powerful speeches about this desperate situation and that even though we, sitting in this Chamber today, cannot solve this problem, it is critical that we discuss it as often as we can.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) on leading this debate and congratulate the Scottish National party on reminding the House over the past few months of the very slow progress that has been made on the Syrian resettlement programme. I offer a mea culpa from me and the Home Affairs Committee, because we have not monitored as we should have done, but we will do so in future, as in order to make progress on resettlement we need to know that the process is actually working. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), because many months ago she initiated an Adjournment debate about the Mediterranean crisis.

Two years ago, the Select Committee visited the border between Turkey and Greece, where we saw for ourselves that 100,000 people were crossing the border every year. The real organisation and institution that has failed the refugees is not this House or this Government, but the European Union, and I say that as one of its great supporters. The failure of the EU to put together a strategy over the past few years to deal with an inevitable crisis is a very serious indictment of that organisation. Although we have had many speeches from Mr Juncker and others in the last few weeks, if they had acted sooner we would all have been better prepared. Greece and Italy have been asking for support for many years. Greece has been saying that it needs additional financial support. Those refugees who cross from Turkey to Faliraki in Greece were allowed to stay there for only six months. They then travelled to Athens and they headed to northern Europe. Some 92% of those who cross into Italy come from the failed state of Libya, and the Italians have been asking for support over the last year but it has never been forthcoming. Now it is a crisis for the whole of the EU.

It is right that we should congratulate the Prime Minister and the Government on announcing that we will take 20,000 refugees. I am not convinced that the timescale is appropriate to the crisis, and that is why yesterday the Home Affairs Committee—the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) was also present—pressed the Minister for Immigration for a target for each year. He was unable to give us a target, and I think that is wrong. We need to make sure that we hold the Government to account, not because we do not trust them to deliver on the 20,000 in five years, but because Ministers’ officials will understand the seriousness of the situation only if we have constant scrutiny and a desire to make things work. If we can have a net migration target, I do not see why we cannot have a target for the number of refugees to enter this year. That can be done and is deliverable, and if the Minister puts his mind to it at his weekly meetings with his directors general he can make sure that the target is implemented. What better way to convince the House of the sincerity of the Government’s pledge—the Prime Minister has been very sincere—than to come back before the House at the end of this year and give us a figure that we can all be very proud of? It would be easy to do that, and I hope that the Government will do so.

The second issue I am concerned about is the fact that the resettlement of the Syrian refugees will be led by Cabinet Ministers who are already very busy. I welcome the committee that has been set up under the joint chairmanship of the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, but what we need is a proper resettlement board. We saw that for ourselves in Leicester when Idi Amin expelled the Ugandan Asians. Without the structure of a resettlement board—independent of Whitehall but of course drawing its authority from Parliament and the Government and necessarily getting resources from the Government—to deal with the people who come here, we will have many problems in dealing with the resettlement of Syrian refugees.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

On my right hon. Friend’s point about organisation, as a former council leader I know that council leaders have so much on their minds at the moment and that dumping this in their laps would be completely the wrong thing to do. We also know about the important interface with the NHS, especially with counselling services. Demand for those services is huge at the moment, and I am particularly worried about the influx of non-English speakers—in the Leicester situation, many of the arrivals spoke English. I am also worried about specialist counselling services for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

[Keith Vaz]

We all share those worries, and that is why it is important that a proper structure is created.

My final point is about north Africa and how we deal with it. I have just come back from Tunisia, where I visited the hotel at which 38 British citizens were sadly murdered. I had meetings with Tunisian Ministers about how they were dealing with the migration crisis. They were doing well. They were showing great humanitarian support and deploying their navy to ensure that the people traffickers in their waters were dealt with, and economic migrants were returned to their countries humanely. We should compare that with Tunisia’s neighbour, Libya, where there is no control and the criminal gangs are operating.

I know that the Minister for Immigration is focused on what is happening in Europol, and we need to give it more resources. The Secretary of State for International Development talked about the taskforce that has been set up, but it has not been set up yet—it will be set up by November. It will be based in Sicily and will involve the National Crime Agency and other organisations. Europol is the only organisation that can deal with all the countries of the European Union and bring to the table expertise in dealing with criminal gangs, but it has not been given any additional resources for that task. I hope that the Minister for Immigration or the Home Secretary will make the point at the meeting next week about the importance of supporting that organisation. Unfortunately, Frontex has been a bit of a failure in dealing with those issues—we cannot of course be in Frontex formally because we are not in Schengen—and has not alerted others to the problems caused by the migration crisis.

We need to make sure that something is done to deal with the criminal gangs. The Prime Minister and others are keen not to send messages to the people traffickers by accepting people who have already arrived in the European Union, and I understand that. I understand why recruitment has to be direct from the camps, but there will be exceptional cases, such as Syrian refugees who have made it all the way to Calais—as the House knows, the mayor of Calais appeared before my Committee yesterday. To expect them to go all the way back to the camps in order to come to the United Kingdom would be unfair. I accept the general principle—once we announce we will take people from everywhere, the traffickers will take €10,000 from people to get them across the Mediterranean—but we need to be able to make exceptions for exceptional cases. We need to address that lack of flexibility.