Home Office Removal Targets

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comment, and he is right. His constituents, like mine, will want to make sure that services available from the DWP, such as benefits, are not made available to illegals. Labour of course supported that approach when they were in office some years ago, and this Government have continued to build on that.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

The Home Office decides who is legal and who is illegal in these cases. I have seen deported—or threatened with deportation—a man with scars on his back from whipping; somebody who was terminally ill and later died; and somebody whose dead children are buried in my constituency. All those people have been classed as illegal by the Home Office. Surely they should not be removed.

[Amber Rudd]

All those cases sound very difficult, but I cannot make immigration comments on the Floor of the House. I am very happy if the hon. Lady wants to talk to me or send me details of individual cases; I will make sure that we look at them.

Criminal Finances Bill

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I had not been in a debate with the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) until this morning, and now we have the pleasure of two in one day.

It is very strange to stand here and talk about the Criminal Finances Bill, because I think that a lot of the things under discussion are totally alien and completely baffling to many of my constituents. Many of them will be thinking, “Why aren’t we doing this stuff already? Why has it taken so long for Governments to get around to addressing the issues?” That is particularly true of unexplained wealth orders, which, for the avoidance of doubt, I support. It is a good idea to introduce them, but I am sure that many people are wondering why that has not happened before.

Most of my constituents will only ever pay tax through pay-as-you-earn. None of the taxes under discussion, such as corporation tax and inheritance tax, apply to them, so they will not know quite how complex the UK tax code is, or that a van is needed to transport it, as is regularly mentioned in this Chamber. I am aware that repetition is allowed—in fact, it is positively encouraged—in this place.

The fact that the tax code is so complex means that it is very easy for people to find and exploit loopholes in it. I appreciate the Bill’s measures to close at least some of them, but there are some glaring omissions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) has said—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) will mention this, too, because I may have read his speech—Scottish limited partnerships are still missing from the measures. We have brought up the issue and it has been widely reported by The Herald. I think that people in Scotland who have read those articles will be clear that the UK Government need to fix that and that they can do so relatively easily because of the high percentage of SLPs that are being used for financing crime.

The right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) mentioned the Victorian principles behind some aspects of finance and tax law. That is a big problem. A lot of the laws have evolved over a number of years and there has never been a wholesale review. The approach has been not “Let’s take it all apart and start again,” but “Let’s tinker by adding a little bit and taking away a little bit.”

When some of the tax powers were devolved, Scotland was, in some ways, in a much better position, because we could start with a much cleaner slate. Our general anti-avoidance rule was said by Isobel d’Inverno, convenor of the tax law sub-committee of the Law Society of Scotland, to be

“much fiercer than the UK one.”

It has also been widely commented that the Scottish Government are in a positon to have a much stronger law and stronger rule, and that that has been beneficial for us to administer the devolved taxes.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway has said, we are calling for a moratorium on the closure of HMRC offices. If it is a massive priority for the UK to ensure that tax loopholes are closed and that criminals do not exploit the tax system, particularly through tax evasion, it is bizarre that offices are being closed, rather than more staff being taken on and more resources being spent on ensuring that such exploitation does not happen. I would appreciate it if the UK Government would reconsider, again, the loss of those important offices and dedicated staff. That is key.

What the Government are doing and the way in which the current system is set up do not encourage people to have confidence in the economic system. It is much like the House of Commons, which is set up in a very traditional way with Standing Orders that were written hundreds of years ago. They do not encourage transparency or confidence in the system, because they allow some people to have too much power. The tax law and the tax codes have much the same problem. Some of them are far too old, and they have been tinkered with rather than changed wholesale. They encourage and allow some people who are in receipt of millions of pounds to continue to have millions of pounds without paying appropriate tax on it, whereas the people at the bottom cannot do so. One of the problems with the system is that nobody has confidence in it. Criminals have worked out how to get around it, and they continue to do so. The people at the bottom of the pile, who are not involved in those tax affairs and who do not see the criminal proceeds, do not have confidence in the system either.

The Government have a real job of work to do if they are to ensure that Bills such as this restore confidence in our tax and regulatory systems. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway talked about the free market economy in America and some of the moves that that country has made. If we were to introduce similar financial regulation for banking and property ownership, not only in and around London but for those who own vast swathes of land in the Scottish highlands, we would inspire confidence among the general public.

The right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) mentioned the recent YouGov poll, and they talked about public confidence in these measures and public concern about tax evasion, particularly in the Crown dependencies. Because such tax evasion has been widely reported in the news, the public are really concerned about it. Their concern is increased by the fact that the Government have not used the Bill to introduce a public beneficial ownership register, and they have not given Parliament a timetable for introducing such a register. The quicker the Government can publish such a timetable, the better for the confidence of the general public in the tax system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway has said, we are generally supportive of some of the measures in the Bill, but it does not go far enough to inspire public confidence in the measures that the Government are taking.

Unaccompanied Children

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) for bringing this important debate to Parliament, and I thank you, Ms Vaz, for chairing this debate. I hope I can get through my speech very quickly.

I will talk about the experience of refugee children who do not have parents to care for them, but first I want to talk about the situation with unaccompanied children who are given the opportunity to come to the UK and the Government’s record on that. To be clear, I am referring to Governments of all colours; I am not in any way making a party political point. The Government have pledged to do more, and I am glad, because their record up to now has been pretty abysmal. When unaccompanied children come to the UK, they are placed in local authority care. Local authorities and communities do their best to care for them, but as soon as they turn 18 the situation changes drastically: they can apply for naturalisation, and too many are turned away. The only place they have ever found safety and comfort turns them away.

We give these children a home and a family. They make friends and learn English. Then, when they turn 18, we send them back to the war zone they came from. Between 2008 and 2012, we sent nearly 2,000 children back to Afghanistan. In the same period, we sent 345 children back to Iraq and at least 22 back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2009 and 2010, we sent back children who were stateless. I do not even know how that works. They were stateless. No state was accepting responsibility for those children, and we sent them out of our country. A bairn who comes to our country as an unaccompanied minor and has no rights anywhere else is refused the right to stay after they turn 18. That is inhumane.

Things must change, and I am therefore pleased that we are having this debate today. The Scottish National party is calling for the UK Government to ensure that all separated children are allocated an independent legal guardian. I am glad that that point was made earlier. It is important that the kids have a voice and someone able to fight their side and navigate our incredibly complicated immigration system. We would like the UK Government to backtrack on the provisions in the Immigration Bill that discriminate against former looked-after children.

I will now turn my attention to the circumstances that displaced children and young people find themselves in throughout Europe, the middle east and other parts of the world. The other night, my four-year-old woke up having had a nightmare. I went in and gave him a hug and he went back to sleep. He had all his favourite toys around him. He had his own pyjamas on and was in his own bed. He knew that his mum and dad were just along the corridor, able to come in and give him the comfort and support he needed. The horror and terror that unaccompanied children must experience is unimaginable. Refugee children are waking from their nightmares and finding that real life is worse. Every day, every hour, displaced children are hoping and praying for comfort and safety. How can we, when we have the means to help them, justify leaving them in that situation?

I went to visit Kittybrewster primary school recently and the children there were talking to me about refugees. They were concerned for refugee children. They are passionate young people, and they grilled me at length about why the Government were not doing more to help children who are like them, but who are alone in a foreign country. They wanted to know what I was doing to help. They wanted to know what Members and the Government were doing to help. They wanted to know how dropping bombs on people in Syria would help to improve the lives of the many thousands of children who find themselves homeless and alone as a result of conflict.

Why, when we have more than enough, are we do not doing more to help those who have nothing? The Government have not been flexible enough. I do not think we should be removing emotion from the debate. We should be thinking about these children as young human beings whom we have a responsibility to help. We need to be doing everything we can to take action now. We should be helping people with compassion and humanity and not simply considering these youngsters as numbers.

Devolution and Growth across Britain

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) on his maiden speech. I am sure he will be an excellent representative of the people of the area.

I am absolutely delighted to give the first maiden speech from an Aberdeen SNP Member of Parliament. Since 1935, Aberdeen North has been represented in the House of Commons by the Labour party. My predecessor, Mr Frank Doran, represented the people of Aberdeen; indeed, he represented Aberdeen South, Aberdeen North and the former Aberdeen Central constituency during his time in Parliament. Mr Doran represented the city over a 30-year period before taking the decision to retire. I did not know him well, but he was an able parliamentarian who was known for sticking to his principles and was highly regarded here. I wish him well in his retirement.

It is an absolute pleasure to represent the beautiful, urban constituency of Aberdeen North. Aberdeen is a city famed for its granite and its oil. Its folk are known for being thrifty and incomprehensible. Although it is true that the Doric takes some learning—it is less a dialect and more a language in its own right—thrifty we are definitely not. Aberdonians are hugely generous, regularly featuring in top 10 lists for charitable giving.

My constituency is bounded to the north by that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond). It covers part of Bucksburn and a little of Bridge of Don, including the stunning Brig of Balgownie. Moving on a wee constituency tour, down through Seaton, we have Pittodrie, the home of Aberdeen football club—the Dons—where Sir Alex Ferguson is best known as a former Aberdeen manager. He led us to great success in the 1980s, but we have not quite been able to reach those heights again.

The constituency follows the freezing North sea down to picturesque Footdee, and the bustling Aberdeen harbour, one of the UK’s busiest ports. There, the Aberdeen North constituency meets the Aberdeen South constituency. The boundary sweeps up to Union Street, a mile-long triumph of engineering and architecture, although it is a street that has seen better days. Aberdeen City Council had the opportunity to draw people back into the heart of the city by creating a bustling city square where St Nicholas House once stood but, in clear and complete disregard for the will of the people, it chose to press ahead with the horrendous Marischal Square project, which will hide views of the city’s finest historical buildings, including Provost Skene’s House and Marischal College.

Moving on in our constituency tour, Rosemount has a thriving set of wee businesses, each filling a niche that cannot be found on the high street. Through Midstocket and King’s Gate, you can see why Aberdeen is called the granite city—granite is gloriously abundant. Kingswells is a thriving community with a strong community council working hard to improve the area. In Summerhill and Sheddocksley, there is post-war housing and the Somebody Cares food bank, which is doing great work that it should not have to do. The Lang Stracht is the home of the famous Aberdeen Journals, where the Evening Express is made and where The Press and Journal has the highest circulation of all Scotland’s regional papers.

Mastrick, Northfield, Heathryfold and Middlefield are areas where regeneration is a buzzword, where members of the community are working so hard to improve their areas. There, folk in our oil-rich city are struggling to make ends meet. Cornhill, Stockethill and Ashgrove are full of older people and young families living in council housing and ex-council housing. In Aberdeen, we are in the midst of a housing crisis. Decades of Tory right to buy have decimated our housing stock. Elected representatives in Aberdeen receive more casework from those struggling to find a home than they receive about anything else. Surely a right to a secure tenancy is more important than a right to buy? Thankfully, the Scottish Government have taken affirmative action; the manifesto that I stood on backed a big increase in investment in housing in Scotland and across the UK.

Rosehill, Hilton and Berryden are a mix of student living and comfortably-off families—three-storey townhouses, granite tenements and the recognisable Aberdeen four-in-a-block. Then we have Woodside and Tillydrone—and another food bank. Instant Neighbour had to make appeals to the public earlier this year as, in Scotland’s third city, a food bank had run out of food. Lastly, there is Old Aberdeen and Aberdeen University, which was founded in the 16th century. In 1593, there were two universities in Aberdeen. At the same time, England only had two.

My constituency is hugely varied. Throughout the campaign, I spoke to many people on the doorstep, and I met the most informed, most engaged and most interested electorate I have ever been faced with in Scotland. We are not at some post-referendum saturation point with politics. People in Scotland have a clear vision for the future. They clearly voted for the anti-austerity SNP and our progressive politics, and they have a clear vision for the future of Scotland.