Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lee Anderson and John Hayes

2nd reading
Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Now then, Janis Bite was 13 years old and living in Latvia at the start of world war two. Two years later, the Nazis came. Their request was simple: one male member from each family to go and fight the Russians. It was either Janis, his dad or his younger brother, so Janis went to the Russian front and witnessed the horrors of war in temperatures of minus 40.

When the war ended in 1945, Janis was classed as a displaced person—a refugee. Imagine that. He could not go back to Latvia, because he had been sent straight to Siberia and that is where they sent his dad, so Janis was given two more choices: the US or the UK. So he came to the UK to a small village in Derbyshire, where he and other refugees were housed in Nissen huts in army barracks. He did not complain or whinge or moan about the barracks or set fire to the barracks or make TikTok videos. In fact, they were so grateful to the UK that they all volunteered to work in the fields at local farms picking potatoes and other seasonal vegetables for no pay. Janis met a girl in the village, he fell in love and he later married. He worked hard all his life and had three sons, one of them being Alan in Ashfield. Janis loved his football. He became a British citizen and loved this country. He even went on to meet our Queen. Janis is no longer with us, but his story makes me feel incredibly proud of our great country and its willingness to help people from all over the world.

[Sir John Hayes]

The story my hon. Friend is telling is a story of someone who sought our aid and got it, but would he contrast that with what is happening now? Would Janis not take the view, which has been articulated in this Chamber tonight, that the system that he held in such high regard is now being gamed and exploited, besmirching the good name of our country and people like him?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. That is absolutely right. I spoke to Janis’s family last week in Ashfield, and they made exactly that point. I will feed that back to them when I get back to Ashfield this weekend.

We have always been a welcoming and tolerant country that has reached out to genuine refugees from all over the world, but just like Janis’s family in Ashfield, most people in the UK do not accept that people travelling here from France in dinghies are genuine asylum seekers—[Interruption.] They are not genuine asylum seekers. We know that many of them have been trafficked with a clear instruction on how to claim asylum once they get here. That is because our asylum system is not fit for purpose, and this Bill stops that.

The Labour party and the Opposition want to bring back free movement. They dislike our points-based immigration system, and now they are going to vote against a Bill that protects our borders and helps us deport foreign murderers and rapists. They will always vote against the British people. This new Bill will ensure that people in genuine need, like Janis all those years ago, get the help they need, and the greedy lawyers and the human traffickers will be told, “No more.” We owe it to people such as Janis who are suffering today to ensure that we have a fairer system that offers genuine refugees a safe haven. This Bill does that.

We have nothing to be ashamed of in this country. We are a kind, tolerant and welcoming country. That is proven by the number of people who risk their lives every single day to get here. If Janis’s family can see that the current situation is unacceptable, surely the Opposition should see that too.

I give a massive thanks to the Home Secretary, who has stuck to her guns. She has listened to the British people and delivered. Opposition MPs want to travel into reality. I will offer this opportunity to all of you now sitting there now with those glazed expressions on your face: come down to Ashfield, come speak to some real people in my towns and villages, and the message you will get will be completely different from the message you are feeding into this House. I am here because of you lot and the attitudes you had in 2019. We are getting tough on crime, we are getting tough on immigration and we are getting tough on law and order.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Lee Anderson and John Hayes

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Now then. As we recover from the pandemic, this Queen’s Speech is just what the doctor ordered. I can tell you now that the residents of Ashfield and Eastwood are absolutely delighted with the contents of the Queen’s Speech. This is the type of Queen’s Speech that actually justifies the why I and many of my colleagues won the red wall seats in 2019.

We are getting tough on law and order, we are getting tough on illegal immigration and we are winning the culture war. Our asylum system is broken, and the eagerly awaited sovereign borders Bill will ensure illegal immigrants cannot claim asylum if they have travelled through a safe country to get here. This is excellent news for genuine asylum seekers who do need our help.

Our brave ex-servicemen should not have to worry about getting a knock on the door 40 years after serving in Northern Ireland. We are going to fix that. They deserve better.

The media and the Opposition called our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill controversial. Imagine that, Madam Deputy Speaker: a Bill that ensures the most violent criminals get locked up for longer; a Bill that ensures public nuisances like Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter are prevented from damaging property and disrupting public life; a Bill that sees sex offenders locked up for longer; a Bill that sees thugs who attack our emergency workers locked up for longer. There is nothing controversial here at all. This is what the British people want. This is what they expect, and I welcome it.

But I would like to see us go further, especially with antisocial behaviour from nuisance neighbours who make their neighbourhood a miserable place to live. Imagine coming home from a hard day’s work with the usual lot causing trouble, causing problems. There is excessive noise, swearing, threatening behaviour, abusive behaviour, a lack of reasoning, a lack of common sense. It sounds like a shadow Cabinet reshuffle to me, but this actually happens every single day in this country. I hope that, on top of this fantastic Bill, we can look at this very important issue.

The Environment Bill is good news. Even the Lib Dems, although they are not here, should be supporting it, because they do their bit to cut emissions by all travelling to work in one minibus.

The Labour party will most probably start banging on again about the NHS, but that ship has sailed for them. They are not trusted on the NHS or social care. Their legacy in Ashfield is a £1 million a week PFI debt on our hospital. Our brilliant NHS, or as we call it, our brilliant national health service, is safe in our hands. The Labour party, however, has its own NHS, which is the national hindsight service. This service is just over a year old and basically is a think-tank of Opposition MPs who have never spoken to anyone outside the Tea Room or Twitter. What they do is claim credit for every good thing that happens in our country, and when things go wrong, they just say, “I told you so.” This is a failing service, so its leader has leapt to another bandwagon, which is home decorations. While he was lurking about in John Lewis looking at wallpaper, our Prime Minister was up in Hartlepool talking to real people about real issues and his vision for the area, and winning elections.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend is making such a robust speech in defence of Ashfield and our country. Is it not the truth that battles are not won, as he put it, on Twitter or in the Tea Room, but up and down this country, and that this Government in this Queen’s Speech are speaking for the silent majority who have been ignored or derided by the metropolitan elite for too long?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely spot on. It is always worth remembering—a little bit of advice for the Opposition—that it is the silent majority that wins elections. It is the silent majority that will win the next election for us. Another word of warning for the Labour party: if we carry on with Queen’s Speeches like this one every year, the red wall seats will stay with us for a very long time. When they refurbish this Chamber, we are going to need extra Benches on this side of the House.

Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme

Debate between Lee Anderson and John Hayes

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to open this Adjournment debate on an issue that is of great importance to my constituents. We have a brilliant judicial system in our country—it is the envy of the world—and we get it right most of the time. However, sometimes we get it wrong when it comes to sentencing. The good news is that we have the unduly lenient sentence scheme, a highly successful scheme that allows sentences for certain offences that are unduly lenient to be referred to the Attorney General and, subsequently, the Court of Appeal, to hopefully get the sentences of some of the worst criminals in our society increased.

It is right that the most serious offenders, including those who have committed violent and sexual offences, should spend more time in prison to match the severity of their crimes. The Prime Minister has been clear that the Government he leads will strengthen public confidence in the criminal justice system, and on behalf of the residents of Ashfield and Eastwood, I will support legislation designed to achieve that.

Legislation was recently introduced in Parliament to abolish automatic halfway release for serious offenders who receive standard fixed-term sentences of seven years or more. That includes those found guilty of rape, manslaughter or grievous bodily harm with intent. Instead, a new requirement to serve two thirds of a sentence in prison was introduced, with the existing strict licence conditions on release continuing. That action means that around 2,000 serious offenders will spend longer in custody, keeping the public safe—and rightly so.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

With the permission of my hon. Friend, which I sought in advance, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wonder whether he agrees with me that the Government also need to tackle the vexatious liberal bourgeois lawyers who try to get the thugs, villains and crooks that he describes—