Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

The Home Secretary is right that she is due to appear before us in two weeks’ time, but the legislation will probably have passed through the House by then. If a piece of emergency legislation is coming before us, as it is now, Ministers should put themselves before the relevant Select Committee. The right hon. Lady managed to fit in a visit to the British curry awards last night, at which we were of course all delighted to see her, but the point is that the date of 16 December for this emergency legislation to come before the House was fixed many months ago, and Ministers must be prepared to be scrutinised on such legislation. That message clearly applies to all Select Committees. The Home Secretary may nod her head, but that is the position. Our Select Committee is now left to conduct a session on this Bill after its Second Reading, which we will do tomorrow.

[Chris Bryant]

Is it not a particular irony that the Government always drag their heels on legislation when it comes to a subject such as circus animals, but when it comes to legislation dealing with the liberty of the individual, the Government always want to expedite the processes through the House. Is that not a nonsense?

[Keith Vaz]

I thank my hon. Friend, although that also happened with a Government of whom we were both Members; it is a feature of the way in which Governments tend to introduce counter-terrorism legislation. Indeed, as the shadow Home Secretary said, mistakes are made, and there were mistakes under the last Government. I remember the incredibly important speeches of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield on 42 days and 92 days, and the role played by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) on these issues. That is why it is so important to pause, consider, scrutinise and then report to the House. The Select Committee will not be in a position to produce a report for this House as we had hoped we might, simply because there is no time to do so as we have already reached Second Reading. By the time the Home Secretary makes her much-heralded appearance before us, the legislation will probably already have passed through the House.

Having made my complaint about that matter, I agree that these are dangerous times. The Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary are absolutely right that we need to act quickly but carefully, while recognising not only that ISIL and extremist groups are operating in Iraq and Syria but that those who support those groups are acting in countries all over the world.

Yesterday I met Nathalie Goulet, the chair of the French Senate Committee that is inquiring into the struggle of jihadi networks in France and Europe. I was astonished to hear that the situation in respect of French citizens travelling to Iraq and Syria is much worse in France than it is in our country. I looked up the last report our Select Committee published, and it must be a surprise for the House to learn that countries such as Belgium, Australia and even Norway are in exactly the same position as we are in respect of citizens who wish to travel abroad to fight.

That is why we cannot see the fight against terrorism as something that affects just this House. The shadow Home Secretary was right to raise the international dimension. The Select Committee was very clear in its last report published earlier this year in saying that there needed to be an international platform, with countries able to pool information and act together. We suggested that we should work through Interpol, which we saw as the most appropriate organisation, as it already exists to share information about organised crime. We felt that that was a platform that could be developed to build an international network with allies such as the French, the Dutch and others to ensure that we do things together and learn good practice.

I learned that in France, for example, they have a dedicated “Green Line”, which people can ring with information about those they suspect of being involved in terrorism, and parents can ring for advice and be guided in the right direction. As a result of the activities of the “Green Line”, the French authorities have been able to stop 200 people from travelling abroad to fight. There are other examples, and I hope that we use the good practice developed in other countries in order not to repeat mistakes and to move forward and try to find effective methods of stopping people travelling.

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[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is right. We need to understand much more, and we can only do so at local level: in the mosque, through community activities, in schools—as the Home Secretary said—in colleges, and in prisons. People who have not been radicalised go into those institutions and come out radicalised, and then there is a failure to monitor them. The solutions are all there—in reports written by Committees over a number of years, in contributions made in all the time Members have been in this House, and in speeches of Home Secretaries, as strong as the one we heard today, when she said what she wanted to put right as far as terrorism and radicalisation are concerned—but they are not acted upon, and they have to be acted upon, otherwise we will be back here in a year’s time doing the same thing again, and we do not want that.

[Chris Bryant]

Does that not highlight why, in considering giving new measures to the Home Secretary, it is incumbent on us to assess whether that would radicalise people further or provide greater security to us? My anxiety about temporary exclusion orders is that exile has not had a good history in Britain. When Richard II exiled Henry Bolingbroke, he simply went abroad, gathered a whole load of allies and came back to this country and removed the King. My anxiety is that these new orders will do exactly the same thing.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is a greater historian than I am, but our constituents would say, if they were to find out there is someone causing mischief in Kenya, as Adebolajo was, that he should be kept in Kenya if the Kenyan authorities want to prosecute him, and that we should not try to bring him back. If there are people in these countries who are up to mischief and who wish to undermine the values of our country, I can understand perfectly why the Government are suggesting an exclusion order.

The issue here is not that we should not accept that; it is to do with the practicalities that the shadow Home Secretary and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield have mentioned. Sometimes we need to be very careful that there is proper judicial scrutiny of the decisions we take. I think that sometimes our constituents would prefer such people not to come back. If they are brought back, they have to be monitored so they do not end up putting on a burqa, leaving a mosque and leaving the country, as Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed did. He wanted to stay in Somalia but was brought back to this country and now is nobody knows where.

Of course I support this legislation. When a British Home Secretary comes before the House and says, “These measures are necessary in order to combat the severe threat we face,” the House will obviously support what the Home Secretary is doing. However, there is a need to scrutinise the practicalities, and the Home Office must work closely with the Select Committee and the House to ensure that we have a solution and decisions that will be in the best interests of our country, and will not create the kind of unintended consequences that we all wish to avoid.

Business of the House

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I begin by congratulating you on your double celebration this week, Mr Speaker—not just an honorary degree from City university but, more importantly, an honorary doctorate from De Montfort university, Leicester, which it was delighted to hand you?

[Chris Bryant]

Utter creep!

[Keith Vaz]

I have learned well from my hon. Friend.

On the subject of education, may I ask the Leader of the House when we can have an urgent statement from the International Development Secretary about the Government’s decision to withdraw from the Government of Yemen £14 million of funding to help with their education system? We do not want Yemen to become another Syria, and the withdrawal of that funding is causing serious problems.

Family Migration Rules

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I join the congratulations that have been rightly heaped on my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) on securing this debate, and on those involved in the all-party parliamentary group and the report. Without the vast resources that the Government would have for a full investigation, the all-party group has produced an important piece of work, and I was delighted to be at its launch last week.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)—who made an important contribution to this debate, just as she did to the process of bringing together the report—and the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather). It was a delight to hear from a Conservative as well, in the shape of the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), who, as we all know, has taken a strong interest in these issues and pursued them with an open mind and an interest in getting to the truth rather than dealing with the facile arguments that we sometimes hear about immigration in the media.

I take issue slightly with the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). He said that because the Minister and I represent constituencies without large amounts of immigration casework, we somehow might not be as kosher in this debate as others. I say to him, first, that I suspect that people in the Rhondda take as great an interest in the issue of immigration as people in his constituency, but may come to a different set of conclusions about it. Secondly, in the Rhondda, we would not have the population that we currently have were it not for migration: particularly from Ireland and England, but also from Italy in the 19th century. Learning long-term lessons about immigration and migration is far more important than chasing daily or monthly headlines on those issues, and that is certainly what I hope to do as shadow immigration Minister.

I make one other point to the Chair of the Select Committee. The average wage in my constituency is considerably lower than the £18,600 threshold, so the immigration cases that I do have all arise from the rule change.

[Keith Vaz]

I would never accuse the shadow immigration Minister of chasing headlines. The point that I was making is that the Members here today, apart from those on the Front Benches, have a heavy case load. I said—he can check Hansard; I know that he is keen on people reading it—that despite the fact that he and the Minister represent the Rhondda and the Forest of Dean, they do have an understanding of the issues. I urge him to look at Hansard before he gets on his high horse again.

[Chris Bryant]

I was not very much on my high horse; I was just using an opportunity to tease my right hon. Friend. Anyway, he has risen to the bait, which is a great delight for us all.

I agree with many of hon. Members’ remarks. Largely thanks to several campaigning organisations, my inbox for the past year has been absolutely full of individual cases, not from my constituency but from all around the country. I will quote a few words from various people; I will not name them. One man wrote:

“I am at breaking point and I can see no chance of being a family, it is breaking our hearts”.

Another wrote:

“We feel trapped by our circumstances. I feel like I’m a prisoner in my own country!”

Both are British people unable to sponsor people to come here. Another wrote:

“This makes me feel extremely angry at the present government and very sad to be a British citizen treated in this way.”

There is certainly a great deal of distress out there. That might be because there has been a change in the law and many people were proceeding on the assumption that there would not be, so they have been suddenly caught out, but we should not underestimate the pain caused. At the same time, I accept that a fundamental duty of Government is to protect the public purse, which I do not think anyone would dispute. When there are real financial problems in the UK, which we need to sort out, it is all the more important for our public services to be protected and for the taxpayer to be protected. Furthermore, everyone accepts that a fundamental duty of Government is to ensure that the system is not open to abuse.

Use of the family route to circumvent immigration rules is small; it does exist and, indeed, I have had cases in my own constituency, but we need to look at it as the years go forward. Women have married someone from abroad, and the man has come to the UK, but, as soon as the marriage has happened, he disappears. We need to tackle that, however, as a form of exploitation and criminality—we need to look at whether there are further changes in the law we need to make.

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[Chris Bryant]

The right to a family life is obviously an important part of what we all accept to be intrinsic to humanity, but it is a qualified right—it always has been under human rights legislation. If it were not a qualified right, we would not be able to imprison someone who was married. I do not want to say that the right is categorical and exists in all positions, but my hon. Friend makes a fair point.

A Catch-22 now arises for many people: if they are the carer of a child and the other parent cannot be present, they might not be able to engage in a full-time job, so they cannot earn the £18,600 that enables them to bring the other parent in. That puts many parents in a difficult situation, and might end up placing a further burden on the state, rather than removing one, and would be a mistake.

As Members have said, it is also true that the effect of the changes is harsher in some parts of the country than in other parts. I suspect that that is why we have a large number of people from the more deprived constituencies in this Chamber today, rather than those from the country’s leafier suburbs. It is also true that the effect on women is disproportionate to that on men; because of the pay gap between men and women, many fewer women than men can achieve the £18,600 figure. Moreover, as the hon. Member for Brent Central mentioned, the report rightly makes the point that to all intents and purposes the adult dependent relative route has been closed: people have to be able to prove in this country that they have so much money, they can care for those dependants; in which case, people should care for them in the country in which the dependants live, unless they are so ill that they cannot stay there, in which case they probably could not travel anyway. We need to look at such issues.

[Keith Vaz]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will, although I am about to disagree again with my right hon. Friend.

[Keith Vaz]

When he does so, will he tell this Chamber what the official Opposition’s position is on the limit? Will it be removed if the Labour party gets into government, or is he planning to review the limit anyway in the next two years, to look at the impact that it is having on people?

[Chris Bryant]

If my right hon. Friend did not intervene, I would have more time to lay out what our plans are. I was about to say that he said the figure was arbitrary, but it is not arbitrary; it is deliberate. The Migration Advisory Committee advised on a range between £18,600 and £25,700—I suppose we should be grateful that the figure is not £25,700—and laid out that, according to its interpretation, at the lower bound of the range, 45% of applicants would not meet the income threshold. In other words, it is deliberate that 45% of people are caught by the limit. It is, therefore, important for us to look at the full impact of the policy—to look not only at the short-term implications, because I understand that it helps the Government to meet their net migration target, but at the full implications in the long run for the public purse and family life.

We undoubtedly have to examine some of the existing anomalies. Many who have written to me made the point, “It is fine if you can come in as a European economic area national; you don’t have to prove anything”, but that seems grossly unfair to someone coming in from outside the EEA. We need to look at such anomalies. We also need to look at what flexibility can be brought into the system. As many Members have said, a non-EEA partner’s earnings cannot be considered at the moment, even though they may be considerable. Ministers sometimes reply that people will be able to come in through a different route—a work route—but that does not apply to many, unless they have a specific job offer and so on. The way in which cash savings are estimated and the earnings of those who are self-employed similarly need to be looked at, as does whether third-party support can be brought into the equation, as it has been in several other countries.

I have already referred to the matter of the parliamentary process. I want us to engage in a proper process, so that Members can go through the legislation for any future change. We also need to assess the effect on the NHS, not only of people coming to this country, but of losing people who are working in the NHS—they might be worried about their elderly dependent relatives elsewhere in the world and decide to leave this country to go there. That issue is already affecting recruitment in south Wales and other places. Also, categorically, we will seek to repeal the Government’s recent abolition of the right of appeal for family visits. It seems quintessentially fair that someone coming to a funeral, wedding or some such occasion should have a right of appeal.

I have one final point to make. The honest truth is that in future there will be more British people falling in love with foreigners. That is simply a fact: more people go on holiday—one in four people go on holiday to Spain each year and one in six to Greece—and they go much further afield for their holidays than they ever have done before. Many of those people are not on vast incomes, but they end up falling in love. That is why we need to—we must—keep the issue under permanent review.

Jane Austen wrote:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

I do not entirely agree, but I suggest a different version: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that every family’s set of circumstances is different.” The law needs to be able to cater for that, rather than the opposite.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

Having seen the right hon. Lady with her little dog, I know that I would not want to take them on in any respect, so I look forward to further deliberations on these matters.

I also join the right hon. Lady in commending the speeches of the hon. Members for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) and for Bristol West (Stephen Williams). I have known the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire since my time at university with him. Indeed, he was speaker of the debating chamber—president of the union—and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and I used to approach him regularly to request opportunities to make speeches. I can well remember the speeches made then by the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire, and they have certainly matured with age. He did very well today in again highlighting not only the importance of his past work as Chairman of a Select Committee, but the way in which, as a parliamentarian for the past 20 years, he has been able to use this Chamber to further the interests of his constituents.

I did not know that the hon. Member for Bristol West was, like me, an Abba fan. He said that his favourite song is “Dancing Queen”, but mine is “Take a Chance on Me”, which were also the words on my first election logo. We all hope that we will not meet our “Waterloo” at the next election. Anyway, enough Abba.

[Chris Bryant]

You can’t get enough Abba!

[Keith Vaz]

I can see that my hon. Friend and I will be on our way to Stockholm.

[Chris Bryant]

I was there yesterday.

[Keith Vaz]

We could have our picture taken with the band.

Let us move on to the serious issues of the Gracious Speech. It is right that, as well as commenting on the proposals that were in the speech, we should refer to those that were not. I join the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) in commending the work of our troops abroad, especially in Afghanistan. I was disappointed, however, that the Prime Minister did not make a definitive statement about the position of Afghan interpreters. Many of them have served with our troops loyally and with dedication, but as yet they do not know whether they will be given sanctuary in this country. They will face enormous difficulties if they remain in Afghanistan.

I was also disappointed not to hear more about the summit on Somalia that the Prime Minister chaired yesterday. Bearing in mind that Somalia and Yemen are both countries of interest for the United Kingdom, the support given to Somalia by the Prime Minister and others at yesterday’s summit was similar to that given to Yemen four years ago. Sadly, half the money pledged to the Yemeni Government has still not materialised, even though we all say that we support that country. I hope that when we debate other aspects of the Gracious Speech—perhaps in the foreign affairs debate—we will have a chance to explore those points.

I want to concentrate on three aspects, the first being the immigration proposals. I understand that there is no Bill as yet and that immigration policy will be consulted on for several months. It will be some time, therefore, before we know where the Government stand on a number of the issues they have raised.

I welcome decisions taken in the past few weeks, such as that to abolish the UK Border Agency, which the Home Secretary described as “closed, secretive and defensive”, and the new leadership she has put in place at the immigration and nationality directorate, starting with the permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill, and the new head of immigration and visas, Sarah Rapson, whom I met a couple of weeks ago in Croydon. Now that the UKBA has been abolished and returned to the mother ship of the Home Office, there is a big opportunity at last to get an organisation that is fit for purpose, so that Members who write to it about immigration cases actually receive replies from Ministers or officials, and not the standard letter saying, “This case is part of a backlog,” which, of course, currently stands at 325,000—about the size of the population of Iceland.

It would be great if the administrative changes result in real change to immigration administration before the new Bill is introduced. As the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said, there is a tendency to legislate in the hope that it will solve the problem, but if we do not have the right people implementing the policies, that is never the correct thing to do.

I hope that the immigration legislation will deal with illegal migration. In particular, I hope that the allegations database will be put on a statutory footing. After all, the Prime Minister said on 10 October 2011:

“I want everyone in the country to help…by reporting suspected illegal immigrants”.

People took him at his word. The latest figures show that between July and September of last year, 28,243 people made allegations of illegal migration to this country. However, there have been only 561 arrests because of those 28,243 allegations and the Home Office does not have the figures on how many people have been removed. It is all very well asking people to report illegal migrants and having the political will to remove them, but if people are not told what is happening to those whom they have made allegations about, the system will not work. I therefore hope that the Bill will include something about the need to tackle illegal migration.

Let us move on to Romanian and Bulgarian migration. I am glad that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, the former Minister for Immigration, is here because he gave a speech on 21 October 2008 in which he said that one of the greatest failures of the last Government was the failure to predict the consequences of enlargement in 2004. That is exactly the problem. The failure to predict is the real issue with Romanian and Bulgarian migration.

Frankly, since we have signed the treaties, it is not possible to do anything about the number of Romanian and Bulgarian people who will come here. What the Government can do is to ensure that we have sufficient research and analysis to know approximately what the number will be. That is possible to predict, even though Ministers have said before the Home Affairs Committee that they do not regard the estimates thus far as being accurate. Migration Watch has estimated that 70,000 people will come every year for the next few years. The Romanian and Bulgarian ambassadors have put the figure at between 10,000 and 25,000. Estimates will continue to be made unless there is proper research and analysis of what will happen. I urge the Government to take action and commission that research. If we know approximately what the numbers will be, the changes that need to be made to domestic policy can be made rather quicker.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Monday 22nd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz]

At the end of the day, although one wants to big oneself up as Minister for Europe, the decision was finally made at a much higher level, and I am not trying to pass on responsibility. However, the fact is that we should have looked at that and at the reasons why these things happened. That is why I hope we can learn from the mistakes that were made and ensure that proper research is commissioned, but the Government have categorically refused to do that.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

Only my mother calls me Christopher, Mr Walker. However, while reading recently, I was struck by the fact that the person who produced the original report for the then Government claims that, if we read all 85 pages, it was remarkably accurate on probable EU migration from the A8 countries to the UK. Unfortunately, all the different political classes at the time relied only on a headline, which was wholly inaccurate. I suspect that it is possible to map out the numbers rather better than has been done in relation to next year.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend was my successor as Minister for Europe, and I do not know whether he had the chance to look at any other documents, but whatever the debates and the arguments were, we were where we were. Bearing in mind that we were in that position, let us not repeat the same mistake.

The estimates of the number of people coming here after 31 December range from 10,000, according to the Romanian ambassador and research commissioned in Romania, to 50,000, according to Migration Watch, as the hon. Member for The Wrekin correctly said. That is a big difference—about 40,000 people. We need to look at that as the central part of our debate about Romania and Bulgaria.

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[Chris Bryant]

My inexperience shows itself so frequently that it is a delight to have your experience in the Chair, Mr Howarth—[Interruption.] However, since you are talking to me while I am speaking, I cannot hear you. Spain removed the transitional controls much earlier and put some of them back in place in 2011. [Interruption.] I am so sorry; I am not sure where that comment came from, Mr Howarth. There are more than 1 million Bulgarians and Romanians in Spain, and similar numbers in Italy, which has also withdrawn the transitional controls.

It is important that we consider what drives where an EU migrant might go, although I might reach a slightly different conclusion from some others. Among the most likely things to decide what country an EU migrant, such as one from Bulgaria or Romania, goes to are, first, the law—whether they are allowed to migrate there—which explains the situation we have at the moment. Secondly, there are personal connections. If a person already knows somebody in a country, they are more likely to go there than to another country.

Thirdly, there is language. Several Members have referred to the fact that English is a key factor. Short of persuading Britons not to speak English any more, I am not quite sure what we can do about the fact that English has become the language of business around the world. However, it is also true that one reason many Bulgarians and Romanians have gone to Italy and Spain is that Italian and Spanish are still taught in schools in Bulgaria and Romania, and other Romance languages are a more easy fit; it is much easier for a Bulgarian or a Romanian to learn Italian or Spanish than English.

The fourth factor is where there is work; that is absolutely vital. That is why Germany is still the No. 1 destination for Bulgarians and Romanians. Interestingly, a couple of Members have referred to the “Newsnight” report coming out today and the different ways it has been reported. We could read the figures in many different ways, as hon. Members have, but one figure was quite interesting. When asked whether the benefits system would make a difference to the country they went to, 72% answered, “Not at all”, 8% said it would to a small extent, 5% said it would to a great extent and 3% said it would to a very great extent. We therefore need to be cautious about stating that the benefits system drives whether somebody comes to the United Kingdom, although, as several hon. Members have said, there is a significant difficulty with family benefits provided on a non-contributory basis. Those are tightly regulated by the EU, which is very keen to enforce its directives and case law. That is something we need to look at.

[Keith Vaz]

I am listening to my hon. Friend’s arguments carefully. Would it be a good idea for the Government to commission research so that we know the approximate numbers of people who might come here? He is talking about opinion polls, which are always useful, and we, as politicians, like them. However, would it not be a good idea to have a detailed piece of research on this subject?

[Chris Bryant]

We tend to like opinion polls when we agree with them; if they do not quite agree with us, we dismiss them or we try to reread them in a different way that concurs with our opinion. Sometimes, of course, people ask questions in opinion polls in such a way as to get the answer they want. I am pretty certain the Government have done significant research on this issue. The Foreign Office has already admitted as much in response to a freedom of information request from me, although it said that it is not yet prepared to publish that research. The only reason it is not prepared to give it to me under freedom of information provisions is that it will publish it in the future. That is a somewhat bizarre way of proceeding. Different Ministers have articulated their views about this, but it is a shame that we are not all being treated as the adults we are and that we cannot, therefore, see this material, as Ministers can.

Let me refer to a couple of other issues. First, there is the Labour market.

Immigration

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman is smiling. I did not mean that to be a foodist comment. He argued in favour of cuts to immigration, but then said that he wants an easier system for distinguished people to come into the country. He said that he wants to get rid of the hub and spoke system, but I would suggest that that would significantly increase the costs of running this country’s migration system, and that he wants to give the officials far more discretion. There is real danger in going down that route. We have to have a system that is manifestly fair and robust and that delivers the same outcome, whatever personal connections somebody may have.

As several Members have said, there are three problems with the motion. First, it links immigration policy to population, and population only. Secondly, it uses the phrase “all necessary steps”, which is a very dangerous set of words. Thirdly, there is a danger that if we agree to the motion we would effectively be cutting off our noses to spite our faces, because of the potential unintended consequences for the future with regard to our economy and our society, let alone to the specifics of our education.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

My right hon. Friend has not even been present during the debate.

[Keith Vaz]

I have.

[Chris Bryant]

I apologise and give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Keith Vaz]

I object to my hon. Friend’s comment. I know that he does not have eyes in his head, but I certainly have been present during the debate. [Interruption.] I meant to say that my hon. Friend does not have eyes in the back of his head. Prior to this debate, I was chairing the Home Affairs Committee and my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, in her evidence, the Home Secretary was very clear that she does not believe in an arbitrary cap on the population of this country either.

[Chris Bryant]

Good. I am glad that my right hon. Friend confirmed that I have eyes in my head, if not in the back of it. Usually, I can sense his presence in the Chamber, but could not on this occasion, so I apologise.

I will make a few introductory remarks. First, it is vital that we have a robust, firm, workable and controlled immigration system that is fair to resident British nationals and to migrants who seek to come here.

Secondly, as many hon. Members have said, sometimes perhaps slightly patronisingly, immigrants have contributed enormously to the United Kingdom. I am sure that we would all agree with that. Few of the people living in my constituency of the Rhondda were not born there. I think that the percentage is the lowest of any constituency in the country. However, 100 years ago, there would not have been the economic growth that there was in the valleys of south Wales without migration from Ireland, England, Scotland and, most notably, Italy. When there was significant unemployment in Italy, many Italians came to work in the south Wales valleys, which is why a café is known as a brachi in south Wales.

Thirdly, British emigrants have contributed phenomenally around the world. One has only to go to Buenos Aires and see that it has more pipe bands than Glasgow to see the positive role that British people have played elsewhere. It would be hypocritical to adopt an attitude that we do not expect British people to face when they travel abroad as emigrants.

UK Border Agency

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that that is a problem, but that does not mean that we do not have to try to make sure that such deportations happen, because that would be a huge saving to the taxpayer and help us to meet the targets that the Government clearly want us to reach.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend referred to the TARDIS, as he calls it, but there are other cases in which people who have not yet been deported are simply categorised as “unknown issues”, so we have the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. That is a bizarre way of dealing with people, is it not?

[Keith Vaz]

It is indeed. There seems to be a paralysis on the part of senior officials of the UKBA, who just create more of these archives and move the backlog into different areas without trying to solve the problem.

The archive has now been reduced from 98,000 to 93,000, and from January to March 2012 it fell to 80,000. When Mr Whiteman, the chief executive of the UKBA, who has been brought in as a new broom to try to make sure that these matters are sorted out, last appeared before the Committee, he promised us that the archive will, in effect, be closed by 31 December 2012, and we will hold him to that promise. His predecessor, Lin Homer, who because of the fabulous work that she did at the UKBA has been promoted and is now one of the permanent secretaries at the Treasury, gave us a promise when she said, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who had requested that the legacy cases be concluded by the end of last summer, that every single legacy case would be concluded by the end of last year. [Interruption.]As can be seen from the reaction of right hon. and hon. Members here today, that has not happened. The UKBA has probably just created another of the filing systems where it puts various files when it does not know what has happened to the people involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

And wisdom is slowly descending upon her.

The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who is not in his seat but who, I am sure, will be back in a moment, referred to the fact that a large part of the casework of many hon. Members relates to the UKBA, and we heard the voice of those Members in the Chamber this afternoon. It was noticeable that only one Back-Bench Conservative Member made a speech in the debate, which is different from previous occasions. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) spoke on behalf of the Liberal Democrats.

The role of the UKBA is to provide an immigration system that is efficient, effective, humane and as watertight as possible, and it must surely be an own goal if people can come in and out of our country or overstay, willy-nilly or, if the system is so complex that it is easy to circumvent or utterly impossible for an ordinary sane person to understand, or if the queues are so lengthy at our airports or ports that the UK’s reputation as a place to do business or as a place to come as a tourist is harmed, or if it costs too much money to run.

In the motion that we are discussing, we are spending £11,034,371,000. That is a significant amount of money and our constituents would want to make sure that it was being spent well.

As the various reports referred to in the debate—two of which are by the Home Affairs Committee—have made clear, the UKBA has not had an easy time. Last summer’s experiments by the Home Secretary meant that warnings index checks were suspended 354 times. They were suspended on European economic area school groups of under-16s travelling by coach at juxtaposed controls, originally with the permission of Ministers. The policy was then extended to sea ports and the Eurostar, which Ministers were notified of, but from February 2011 the age restriction was completely lifted without any degree of permission. The agency’s records on the suspension of warnings index checks were extremely poor, as Mr John Vine has testified. The secure ID was suspended 482 times between June 2010 and November 2011, 463 of which were at Heathrow, the country’s busiest airport.

We understand that this was all supposedly because the UKBA interpreted the Immigration Minister’s letter of 27 January 2011 as approval to lift the secure ID. He believes that that was not his intention whatsoever. The Home Secretary made clear her opposition to the moves being mooted on 13 April, yet it continued. This is obviously a sign of an organisation in chaos. Indeed, the independent chief inspector’s report states that

‘the language used in both the “Summer pressures” submission to Ministers and the response provided’—

in other words, by Ministers—

“was not clear and as a result was open to misinterpretation… there was confusion amongst staff”

not least because the Home Secretary’s office note did not clearly define any of the terms being used.

I would like to refer to another report by the independent chief inspector, on border control operations at Heathrow terminal 3 from August to November 2011, the same period covered by the Home Affairs Committee’s report. The inspector identified even more worrying signs, first of an

“inconsistent application of border security checks”,

and secondly of “completely inadequate” record keeping in two thirds of the cases examined. That matters, because all the references we have heard in the debate to paperwork further down the system being inadequate, poorly looked after, incomplete or disappearing into the black hole, or the Tardis, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East referred to it, stem from inadequate record keeping at the beginning. However, the report found such inadequate record keeping not only at terminal 3, but at Gatwick’s north terminal.

In addition, the inspector found:

“The introduction of team based working in July 2011, coupled with a new shift working system and the amalgamation of immigration and detection roles at Heathrow was far too much organisational change during the busiest time of the year at Heathrow.”

That goes to the heart of the point my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington made on how staff morale can be kept up so that they do an effective and efficient job if they are trying to cope with so much change at the same time. Perhaps we are demanding too much of them. The inspector also found that all this was

“complicated by staff reductions of 15% at Terminal 3”.

We want secure borders, but it is difficult to provide them if we do not provide enough resources to allow the job to be done properly. When I visited Stansted on Monday to see the operation there, staff working for the UKBA made it clear to me that all the new staff who have been drafted in to help in the run-up to the Olympics and through the games receive only three days of training. They are unable to do the full job that is necessary and, consequently, there is a real security problem. In addition, the fact that they are suddenly recruiting back from retirement people who were made redundant only last year makes it look as if they do not really know what they are doing.

The report also found that:

“The Agency was failing proactively to deal with absconders,”

and I really want to raise that issue with the Minister, because there is a serious problem with absconders, and it is not just at terminal 3—although the report found that it had increased there

“by 62% between 2009 and 2011.”

Indeed, not only did the figure for those absconding go up, but the figure for people who were captured having absconded went down, falling from 40% to 16%, meaning that during that period alone some 150 people absconded—and have not been found.

I raise the matter because I worry that the general level of absconders is rising throughout the country, so, first, I should be grateful if the Minister said how many people who have been told that they are no longer able to stay in this country are still in this country. Can he pitch a figure? Is it 100,000, 150,000, 250,000? I suspect that it is about 150,000.

Secondly, the Government and the UKBA have absolutely no idea where many of those people may be, or whether they have left the country, and that must surely be a concern, so can the Minister confirm whether all absconders are added to the national police computer, either as wanted or with a local trace mark, so that when somebody pops up in another area it is possible to track them down? If they are not, the UKBA is failing in its task.

I raise one other problem in relation to the independent inspector’s report, namely that of measuring queues. I noticed at Stansted that the UKBA starts measuring the length of a queue only from the moment at which someone enters the terminal building, but the queues often start long before the terminal building, and the time from the moment someone enters the terminal to their passport being dealt with is normally only 20 minutes, because the vast majority of the queue is backed up way down a series of tunnels, on trains and, sometimes, on aeroplanes, so I am distrustful of the figures for queuing times at Stansted.

[Keith Vaz]

I, too, went to Stansted, albeit at a different time from my hon. Friend, and the problem is that, when British citizens return to their own country, they are held by airline officials just before they join the escalators, all the way back to the plane, and that, when they reach the immigration hall, half the kiosks are un-personned.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, “un-personned”: very correct of my right hon. Friend.

In addition, one of the biggest problems, which applies not only to Stansted but elsewhere, is that many staff who have been brought in to help in the run-up to the Olympics, a known problem that is coming along the track, are not able to work with non-EU passengers, and consequently the moment any arrive there is an enormous back-up. Further, when I was there on Monday morning not a single e-gate was working, and I understand that they were not working at any point at all on Monday.

The fact that e-gates are not working effectively is a significant problem across the estate and at several different ports. When IRIS finally goes in September, the real problem will be whether we have any automated system on which we can rely, so I should be grateful if the Minister commented on the future of automation.

I have one final complaint in relation to the inspector’s report, because at Heathrow terminal 3 there was a 58% drop in the issuing of IS81 forms, on which a passenger is told that they will be subject to further interrogation. That is important, as all too often in a simple desire to cut queues, we are cutting back on security, because staff are not able to do their job properly.

There is a further problem in relation to foreign national prisoners. Of the 5,012 who completed their sentences in 2010-11, 3,248 were removed, 471 were allowed to remain but the cases of 1,300—a staggering figure—are still outstanding. Only 500 of those are detained. There are other unspecified issues with 20 of them and, as I said earlier, 27% of them—some 350—are just categorised as unknown issues. In other words, the UKBA has next to no idea about what is happening with those people or about the likelihood of moving forward in a way that makes their lives easier or our country more secure.

In addition, immigration tribunals overturn UKBA decisions a dramatic number of times—41% of appeals are lost by the UKBA. That is a significant problem. Obviously, it delays people’s ability to get on with their lives and it is a significant additional expense for the UKBA. How will the Minister tackle the problem of so many appeals being lost at tribunal?

I have a minor comment to make about the common travel area, also at Stansted. It was pretty clear that it would be easy for someone to negotiate their way around without going through proper border controls, having printed off a boarding pass pretending that they had flown in from Ireland when in fact they had flown in from somewhere else. I hope that the Minister will be able to close that loophole.

My final point is that the Government are planning to cut staff at the UKBA by 5,300. I believe that that will make it phenomenally difficult for the agency to do its job effectively. In particular, in the run-up to the Olympics, which everybody knew were coming along, we have already seen how difficult it has been to maintain strong security and a decently short length of queue.

Lots of people have been flown in from different parts of the country as emergency measures in the run-up to the Olympics, and the relevant people have been prevented from taking holidays during the Olympics and Paralympics. My concern is that the moment that is over, it will be phenomenally difficult for the UKBA, without those resources, to get anywhere near doing its job properly. We can complain about the UKBA, but if we do not give it the resources to do its job properly, our complaints are worth nothing.

Phone Hacking

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I accept the tone of the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s remarks, but I think that we have hesitated for too long. It is not that I want to rush to summary justice, but I do want to ensure that justice ends up being done. Documents could be seized now, and material could be tied down. Of course, many elements of the form that the inquiry would take need to be hammered out, and I suggest that the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition could have fruitful discussions to ensure that that is possible.

I also believe that we need a public inquiry because Parliament—which has conducted its own Select Committee inquiries under the excellent chairmanship of the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)—has been systematically lied to throughout the process. The list of lies is, I am afraid, endless.

News International claimed that the phone hacking only started in 2004, but we now know for certain of instances relating to 2003 and 2002. News International claimed that it had run a full internal investigation. It is patently clear that if it did, it hid stuff from the police, and that otherwise it did not. News International claimed that it had always helped the police, but only private civil cases pursued by some brave individuals have forced its hand.

The police claimed that they had notified all the victims, and that specifically named people were not victims. We now know that not all the victims were contacted, and that some people who had expressly been told that they were not victims were victims. I think that even Assistant Commissioner John Yates now accepts that he has misled Parliament because he briefed The Independent on Sunday that he was furious at the “inadequate” and “unprofessional” research of those beneath him with the result that some of his public statements at the time were at odds with what has subsequently emerged. I am sorry, but leadership does not involve the leader being rude about their staff; it involves them taking responsibility for what they say to Parliament, and if they have misled Parliament, they should resign.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend was an excellent witness when he came and gave evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs. However, the point is this: if a witness refuses to appear, it is very difficult to start the process of getting them before a Select Committee. A wider inquiry would have more powers than even a Select Committee.

[Chris Bryant]

That is my next sentence.

Many people out in the wider world may not care much whether Parliament is lied to—although I think we should—but this House came into existence to hold what was then the sole power in the land, the Crown and then the Government, to account. Where we now fail often, and sometimes miserably, is in holding the other powers in the land to account. We must do that properly from now on, and this is one such instance. We politicians have colluded for far too long with the media: we rely on them, we seek their favour, and we live and we die politically because of what they write and what they show, and sometimes that means we lack the courage or the spine to stand up when wrong has occurred.

We have let the Press Complaints Commission delude us into thinking that it is genuinely independent and has a bite that everybody is frightened of. Sometimes, we may even have fallen for the threats that have been made when we have spoken out. I know of several Members who have led this debate who have received threats.

We have let one man have far too great a sway over our national life. At least Berlusconi lives in Italy, but Murdoch is not resident in this country; he does not pay tax here and has never appeared before a Select Committee of this House. No other country would allow one man to garner four national newspapers, to be the second largest broadcaster, and to have a monopoly on sports rights and first-view movies. America, the home of the aggressive entrepreneur, does not allow that, and we should not.

Of course the proposed takeover of BSkyB should be put on ice while the police investigation is ongoing. The executive and non-executive directors have completely failed in their legal duty to tackle criminality in the company in question, and it must surely be in doubt, at least, whether some of them are fit and proper people to run a media company.

There are many other questions. Who is paying Glenn Mulcaire’s legal fees now? Is News International paying them? Was Clive Goodman paid off handsomely when he came out of prison? What did Rebekah Wade, Andy Coulson and Les Hinton know, and when did they know it? Why has so much material suddenly appeared in News International’s archives? I do not want to be partisan but there is one remaining question: did the Prime Minister ever ask Andy Coulson what really went on at the News of the World before he appointed him to work, on the taxpayers’ bill, at No. 10 Downing street?

I hope that those who broke the law at the News of the World and those who covered it up will be brought to justice. I hope the Metropolitan police’s now tarnished reputation will be restored. I hope the victims, especially the ordinary members of the public who were targeted, will get justice as well. I hope we will all get to know the truth, but even more importantly than all of this, I hope that the British media, who for so long have had a worldwide renown for craftsmanship, for tough intelligence and for robust investigative journalism, will rediscover their true vocation: to bring the truth to light truthfully, honestly, and legally. None of that will happen until we establish the whole unvarnished truth, and that, I believe, needs a public inquiry, and it needs it now.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Keith Vaz and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

Let me say to my right hon. Friend, the former Minister for Europe—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We have a set of former Ministers for Europe in the Chamber.