Oral Answers to Questions
Lincoln Jopp Excerpts(2 days ago)
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Dame Diana Johnson
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that shocking case to the attention of the House. All our thoughts will be with Elizabeth and Georgia after what they have been through. I also want to applaud the Co-op for the leading role that it has played in helping us to develop this new offence of assault against shop workers, to ensure that it is not just armed robbery against its staff that will be punished but the acts of violence and intimidation that far too many shop workers find happening on a daily basis. On the issue of serious crime in rural areas, our neighbourhood policing guarantee will deliver thousands of neighbourhood police community support officers across England and Wales, including in rural areas, to speed up response times, build up public confidence and ensure that for those violent criminals who commit acts such as armed robbery, there will be no hiding place from the law.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
In Ashford and Staines in my constituency we have a real plague of shoplifting and antisocial behaviour. Inspector Matthew Walton of the North division is doing a great job with his team to tackle it, in combination with the community and the retailers, but still the problem is getting worse. After the success of the facial recognition software roll-out in Croydon, will Ministers please consider extending it to Spelthorne, because it would be a welcome addition to policing in my area?
Dame Diana Johnson
As an operational matter, live facial recognition is something for the police to use as they deem fit, but from my experience of it being used in Croydon, I can see the benefits to policing. It seems to be a very effective tool that police forces should have in their armoury.
Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings
Lincoln Jopp Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dame Angela Eagle
Yes. Illegal working arrests and visits have increased by 38%. More people have been arrested. More people have been fined. We are seeking to ban those who abuse illegal workers—often underpaying them and treating them like modern slaves—from running companies. The fines are now £60,000 per illegal worker. There is no reason why legitimate small businesses should be undermined by illegal working and illegal practices.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Are the Government considering sending failed asylum seekers to overseas return hubs?
International Women�s Day
Lincoln Jopp Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
I think that International Women�s Day is fantastic because it gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to someone whose birthday would have been on International Women�s Day had she not been born in 1909. I hope that she passes the �gladiator� bar to which the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) referred.
Beatrice Shilling is one of the most consequential people of the 20th century that people have never heard of. She was born in Waterlooville, Hampshire, and soon became one of those children who loves taking things to bits�she won a Meccano prize. She saved up her pocket money and bought her first motorbike at the age of 14. By 1936, she was only the second woman ever to record an average speed of 100 mph around the Brooklands circuit just over the River Thames from my Spelthorne constituency.
By 1939, Beatrice Shilling was at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Obviously, the second world war was upon us. Crucially, the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine used in the Hurricanes and Spitfires had a fatal flaw: once pilots went into a negative G-force dive, the engine had a propensity to flood and cut out. The Germans did not have that problem because they had a fuel injector, and they soon worked out that the British pilots faced the dilemma of whether or not to follow them. That could have been catastrophic, so people turned to Tilly Shilling, as she was universally known, to come up with a solution. She invented a small thing�the size of a thimble�with a little hole in it, which could, crucially, be fitted to the fuel line of the Merlin engine without taking the plane to bits, meaning that the much-needed air power of the second world war could remain in the fight.
Beatrice Shilling faced a certain amount of male condescension. The device she had designed was referred to as �Miss Shilling�s orifice�. However, no one minded the fact that, when fitted to the planes, the devices kept them in the fight. She contributed an extraordinary amount to the winning of the second world war. I welcome International Women�s Day because it gives me the chance to tell that story. At a time when clouds are again darkening around the world and the nation has to re-arm, and, as we have heard, we must encourage the Tilly Shillings of tomorrow to come forward to contribute to our defence and aerospace industry, I hope that her story will inspire many people across the country to see that they can make a huge contribution to our national defence.
Migration and Border Security
Lincoln Jopp Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
As the hon. Member will know, we strongly support Ukraine, given what it has had to endure and go through. We continue to condemn the Putin Government for the things that they have done and the impact that they are having on Ukraine, and we will continue to support Ukraine in every way possible.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
A constituent wrote to me recently asking if I could get a hurry-up on his application under the EU settlement scheme. It turns out that he is subject to a deportation order, and that we actually did deport him in 2018, but he managed to get back into the country somehow and to make his application under the EUSS. The Home Office told me last week that it could not deport him until his EUSS application had been played out, including all the appeals. He made the application in 2020, and it is now nearly the end of 2024. In a spirit of bipartisanship, may I suggest that the Home Secretary should change the rules with a stroke of her pen, and that anyone who is subject to a deportation order should simply be deported? In a similar spirit, may I suggest that if she can get it done by Friday, I will gladly drive him to the airport myself?
Yvette Cooper
The last Government had 14 years—or at least four years, since the EU settlement scheme was introduced—to deal with some of these issues. We take very seriously the need to speed up and improve enforcement of returns for those who have no right to be here. The immigration system and the asylum system can only work and command public confidence if the rules are respected and enforced. That means that if someone does not have a right to be here, there should be proper enforcement. We are working to speed up enforcement, which is why there was a significant increase in returns over the summer, but we will continue to do so, and we will continue to consider what further amendments can be made to improve matters.