Border Control Scheme

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Any overseas flight that arrives in Northern Ireland from outside the common travel area will be treated like any other flight. Of course, the hon. Gentleman will know that there are complications and issues to consider with the common travel area, and as part of the list of things on which we are now acting, I am considering how to strengthen it so that we properly address the various problems that I know he and his colleagues from Northern Ireland have identified.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the previous Government’s reckless open-door immigration policy resulted in problems in community cohesion in many of our towns, and that we should not be taking lectures from individuals on the Opposition Benches?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has put his concerns on the record, but we must stick to the Minister’s responsibility.

UK Border Force

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The decision was taken by me as Home Secretary, together with the Immigration Minister.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that under the previous Government the public lost confidence in Labour’s ability to manage immigration and border controls, and that that drove a significant number of people into the hands of the far right? Does she agree that we should not let the people down in such a way?

[Mrs May]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Sadly, the immigration policy of the previous Government led to significant concerns among members of the public. This is an issue that matters to members of the public. It is this coalition Government who are taking action that I believe members of the public want us to take to reduce net migration into this country, to get rid of the abuse of student visas, and to deal with some of the other issues that led to the significant numbers of people coming into this country over the past 13 years under a Labour Government.

Gangs and Youth Violence

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady raised a number of issues. The amount of money made available to Hackney from the early intervention grant allocation in the current financial year was, of course, about £20 million. We will be identifying the areas that the Home Office funding will be going to. As I said in response to the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), we have also already put money into Greater Manchester, the west midlands and London—the three areas where most knife crimes are committed—in looking to work with projects to tackle those knife crimes. So that funding has been available.

Only a small number of adult gang injunctions have been introduced so far. As the hon. Lady will know, the injunctions were introduced only earlier this year, but their use is increasing. I am aware that there were some issues in the early days in relation to their implementation, but we are getting through those teething problems and the gang injunctions have been used in areas where they have been effective.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. Yesterday, two gang members from my constituency were found guilty and sentenced, one to an indefinite term for firing a double-barrelled shotgun in a drive-by shooting. Does she agree that violent criminals must be given the most serious sentences to stop them bringing fear and destruction to our towns, and that this Government will relentlessly pursue these individuals?

[Mrs May]

We will absolutely do that. I assure my hon. Friend that we are ensuring that tough sentences for the worst of our criminals are indeed available, and I commend his local police on having made those arrests.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

I want to concentrate on the impact of terrorism and anti-terrorism law on the relationship between the Muslim community and the non-Muslim community and between the Muslim community and the state. The Bill needs to be understood in the context of the Prevent agenda that was mentioned earlier, the relationship between the Muslim community and the police, the work of the security forces and international events, interventions and identity. There must be a question about what incited young British Muslim men to blow themselves up in British streets.

Perhaps it is right that we should look right at the root of some of those issues and ask whether people feel that they are British, whether we make them feel British and what it is to be British. In July 2001, I watched out of the windows of Bradford city hall as hundreds of mainly young British Muslim men ran through the streets of Bradford while mounted police and young, brave police officers fought to try to protect the city. More than 300 police officers were injured, £20 million-worth of damage was done to the city and its reputation was severely damaged. That action was undertaken by mindless idiots. It was not about race—it was not a race riot—but about thuggery.

It was interesting—these events were appreciated and understood by the community—that a few days later the local newspaper published the mugshots of some of the participants and the parents and family members brought those young men down to the police station and started the process of convicting them. That was a harmonious event among all the destruction and upheaval that was running through the community.

Later that year, in September, a meeting of the council’s executive, of which I was a part at the time, was stopped and adjourned while we watched the second plane go into the twin towers. Those shocking events made the city reel. Our city was already uneasy with itself and braced itself for further fallout. The tension and suspicion were evident in the pub and the street and when one talked to friends; racists had a field day. What the terrorists wanted had happened and people were frightened. After the Iraq invasion, seen by many in the district as illegal, the dividing line with the Muslim community appeared even greater, so the community, led by the council and other agencies, set about mending bridges. Indeed, bridges were often created for the first time. For five years, there were school exchanges, people were brought together and cross-community sports were promoted. Areas were created where people could talk openly, speak honestly and speak their mind about issues, challenging each other. We were not naive about where we got to in that process, but it was important in building relationships.

The day after it was announced that London had won the Olympic games, four men, one originally from Bradford, blew themselves up and murdered many innocent people. That evening, all the main agencies met at the university, which then and since has played a huge role in promoting cohesion in the district. They were brought together to talk, to try and reassure each other and to ensure that we resolved that individual psychopaths would not damage our city further. Our resolve to work together was stronger than that.

In the days that followed, time and time again Muslim people came up to me and told me of their disgust at what had happened. Let me exemplify the feeling of fear. A couple of days after 7/7, an elderly friend of my mother’s was crying as she got off the bus. A young Muslim man—completely innocent—was carrying a rucksack on the bus and she feared that she would die as a consequence. A whole set of tensions, fears, contradictions and events ran through the community as a consequence of those terrorist activities.

We need strong anti-terror laws, but they need to be owned by all the community. Many innocent citizens feel that the existing laws are somebody else’s and we need to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes. As I outlined in my introduction, communities respond, adapt, learn and survive in the face of terrible events and today the Muslim community in my town is not listening to this debate—those people are getting on with their lives, like the rest of the community.

When I talk to people from the Muslim community, I hear that they feel battered. It is always the wider Muslim community—I know that is a generic term to use—that feels pursued. Good people who have no hatred in their hearts are looked on with suspicion by others and have been subjected to some of the knee-jerk reactions. I agree that it was difficult to start the Prevent agenda with a blank piece of paper and although I was extremely critical of it, I take it in good faith that it had to be started somewhere. The idea behind national indicator 35, which planned to map a specific community, had a huge impact and was seen as a hugely derogatory gesture.

I have seen reports in the paper that doctors will be asked to report if they spot somebody who is acting suspiciously. My chief executive was brought to London and was told that the binmen had to look out for bombs and devices. Good-minded, good individuals, if they spot a bomb, a device or something suspicious, do not need the Government to ask them to pick the phone up and tell somebody. They do it because they are good citizens of this country.

In conclusion, any anti-terror law must protect its citizens from ideological psychopaths who threaten to destroy society and the values that define it. One fundamental problem, as the Prime Minister has pointed out, is that there are differences in certain values to do with such issues as equality, human rights and corruption. The Government have the difficulty of achieving a balance between ensuring safety and not alienating communities from one another. The aim of a coherent society cannot be achieved to the detriment of one part of that society.

People can seek to integrate, respect each other and even to develop shared ownership of important laws such as the one we are talking about today without compromising their principles. I want the Muslim community to feel safe, to be successful and to play a full part in British society and this Bill must be made law to help and to enable and not to hamper that aim.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his opening statement and acknowledge that we have to accept such recommendations with a degree of trust because we cannot have access to all the information that he and others have. I know that he will have sought and listened to legal advice, as his comments reflected.

I welcome the Minister’s saying that the order is not about targeting the Pakistani community or the Muslim community; it is about a group of individuals whose activities need to be addressed and challenged. The Minister’s clear statement of that reassurance is really important for a community that has gone through a long period of feeling that it is targeted at every level.

As the Minister said, there is disgust and revulsion at the violence that has been carried out by the individuals in question, against civilians in the vast majority of cases, because cowards like to target civilians. Families and individuals have suffered as a consequence of that violence, and the leadership shown by the House in supporting the order will send out a clear statement about our solidarity in the desire to fight terrorism wherever in the world it manifests itself.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good case, and he knows Northern Ireland terrorism better than most people in this House. He also knows that internment was one of the best recruiting sergeants for the Provisional IRA and others in that period. So yes, he is right.

The second hard fact I want to draw on relates to the reasons given to me for 42 and 90 days by John Reid, the predecessor as Home Secretary of both my right hon. Friend the current Secretary of State and my friend the shadow Secretary of State. When John Reid briefed me, as shadow Home Secretary, on his Government’s proposals for those periods of detention, the most telling argument he had—to be fair, it was telling—was the prospect of the British agencies being overwhelmed by multiple prospective attacks at the same time. The circumstances he listed were as follows: multiple plots against multiple targets at multiple locations, with not all the information involved being in our control—perhaps some of it was coming from foreign intelligence agencies such as the Pakistani service—and with the plot already starting to be carried out, so that it was necessary to move quickly.

That was the case the then Home Secretary made, and within a month or so of his briefing me on it we almost had a rehearsal in Operation Overt, the Heathrow plot, to which the shadow Home Secretary referred. It was thought at the time that 10 aircraft had been targeted, although it now turns out that the true number was seven, as well as multiple locations—there were many suspects at the beginning in at least three different locations. There were also concerns about gaining access to some of the houses and other places where evidence was thought to be located, and foreign evidence was involved, too. It was a facsimile of the case John Reid had described.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although we accept that radicalisation may not be created by one action or one piece of legislation, having pre-charge detention of 28 days compromises civil liberties and that, for some at least, it is one step towards radicalisation—as is the Prevent agenda’s national indicator 35, which targeted the Muslim community specifically? We need to make sure that we do not compromise the democratic process and that we engage all communities.

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. This is the most symbolic of the restrictions of our civil rights, and the one seen by Muslim communities in this country as being targeted on them. It is not intended to be, but that is the way it is seen.

What actually happened as a result of Operation Overt and the Heathrow plot? As the shadow Home Secretary said, six people were held beyond 14 days; five people were held for 27 or 28 days, and at the end of that process it turned out that three were innocent. I used the word “innocent” when the previous Government were in power, and I was almost shouted down. I mean innocent: no control order, no surveillance, no open file—the police thought they were innocent. When I obtained that information I had with me as my witnesses my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and the Attorney-General. What was thought was therefore very plain.

Identity Documents Bill

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

May I congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker, on your new position? I also congratulate the other maiden speakers today.

I did not think I would be following up a line about Rod Hull and Emu in my maiden speech. I have a lot of respect for the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). I have met him many times and agree with many of the things he said. Following the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I can sit together during World cup matches and support England.

I want to say a few words about identity documents. As has been pointed out, I do not believe that terrorists will volunteer to get an ID card. I do not believe that after the public’s initial enthusiasm for ID cards they wanted to be taxed again for more paperwork.

Many supporters of identity cards suggested that they would address illegal immigration. During the election campaign in Keighley and Ilkley, immigration was a big issue. Sadly, that was because many people had lost confidence in the Government’s addressing illegal immigration to this country. At that point, sadly, some people considered supporting right-wing extreme parties, as people in Keighley have done in the past. What was actually required to address the issue was not an ID card, but a strong, robust and sensible position on immigration—capping numbers and making sure that we secured our borders. The good news is that we did offer that, and the public listened and believed us. The two right-wing fascist groups that stood in Keighley were severely trashed.

I would like to compliment the work of my predecessor, Mrs Ann Cryer. I have known Mrs Cryer for many years and, politically, we first met when she was campaigning to save Oldfield school—at the time, the smallest school in the constituency—which the local Labour council was trying to close. She intervened, spoke to the Secretary of State and gained support to save the school. I was a councillor in that ward at the time—I still am, in fact—and many local people appreciated her intervention.

Mrs Cryer campaigned vigorously for the rights of women. At one event I remember attending, there was a significant proportion of members of the Muslim community. They had been segregated into women and men. Ann insisted on only addressing the women in the room if they were to be segregated. It was a powerful statement to the men in the room that the women did not need to be treated in that way.

Members will know of the work that Ann did in highlighting the abuse of young women by men in my constituency, and her work is being continued. Sadly, the abuse is still going on and the work of the police and social services is seeking to address it. The final piece of work by Ann Cryer about which the House will know is forced marriages, which are not to be mixed up with arranged marriages. Forced marriage is a vile activity that Ann fought against for nearly all her time as an MP. I am sure that she will continue the fight in retirement. I offer my wishes that Mrs Cryer has a long and happy retirement.

The family name will of course be kept in the Chamber for some time to come, in that the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) has been elected. I met him for the first time in 32 years a couple of weeks ago. He and I went to school together. He was the Labour candidate in the mock elections in 1979 and I was the agent for the Conservatives. [Hon. Members: “Who won?”] Sadly, he won on that occasion. In the same year, his father, the late Bob Cryer, won the parliamentary seat by 78 votes, the first time that Keighley had not gone in the direction of the Government of the time.

I am from the village of Oakworth, and live there. Before I leave the Cryers, I should say that Ann, Bob and John are all from Oakworth and, obviously, they have all become MPs. I have the great privilege of representing my town as well. The first MP for Keighley was from Oakworth. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr Pickles), is from Oakworth. The son of the local vet, one Alastair Campbell, is also from Oakworth. The Notting Hill of the north, possibly? Or maybe there is something dodgy in the water.

I have listened to many maiden speeches over the last couple of days and many Members have talked about their constituency being the jewel in the crown of the country. They are wrong; mine is. The place I represent has Brontë country: Haworth, the wuthering heights and the wildness of the moors. Ilkley moor looks down on the town of Ilkley, a beautiful place with a great sense of identity. There are also the great towns of Keighley and Silsden. It is an immensely diverse place with great wealth in parts of it. Sadly, there is also great poverty. Keighley Central is one of the most deprived wards in the whole country, to the extent that some people are still using outside toilets, which is a disgrace in the 21st century.

In parts of the constituency, life expectancy is nine years longer than in other parts. Educational attainment is low, particularly among Muslim young men and boys, who are not achieving their potential. Unemployment is high. Drug dealing and drug abuse is a big issue. I have the great privilege of representing a beautiful place which is immensely diverse, with a great populace and huge social issues that need to be addressed. On our estates, there is third-generation benefit dependency. Many young members of our Muslim community are not ambitious or aspirational and do not have the opportunity to break out of the poverty in which they live.

I believe that education and skills are the way forward. To benefit from that—Ann said this and I repeat it—our young people must come to school speaking English. There is a huge issue associated with that, not just in the Muslim community, but in the white community. Understanding of the English language is poor in many of our white working-class areas. That needs to be tackled.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I had the great privilege of being the leader of Bradford council, which is a tremendous honour. Bradford is a place of massive challenge, but also a great city. I put on record my thanks to the chief executive, Tony Reeves, and his staff for the tremendous work that they do, particularly in education and with looked-after children, which is extremely important to his team.

I took on the responsibility of attempting to address community cohesion in Bradford. We were asked how such an academic philosophy can be put into practice. The answer is through an educated work force, decent homes, and people being healthy, having jobs and living in a safe environment. Then, when communities are brought together, they do not simply tolerate each other, but respect each other. I want to aspire to promoting and achieving that during my term as the MP for Keighley.

Finally, I am former Private Hopkins of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and I am extremely proud of that. It is now amalgamated into the Yorkshire Regiment, which gets its new colours next week. I have watched this place making decisions, and sometimes not being able to make decisions, about war. We send our guys and our women to war, and it must be a legal war. I am very much aware of my responsibility in sending those young men and women to war. We must give them the right equipment and, when the conflict ends, look after and care for them.

I support the end of the identity document. I also intend to support the Government in addressing the huge financial deficit in the coming years as the MP representing Keighley and Ilkley.