Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

We always place a high priority on the wellbeing of asylum seekers, which is why we are also committing to rolling out safe and legal routes as part of our plan.

While I have the attention of the hon. Lady, may I take this chance to invite her to apologise to the nation? She campaigned in 2020 to stop the Government from deporting a serious foreign criminal. Thanks to her efforts, together with those of 70 Labour MPs, the Government were subsequently stopped from removing Ernesto Elliott, who went on to murder in the UK. Mr Speaker, will—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Home Secretary should know better. This is sub judice.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

He has been convicted—it is not sub judice.

[Mr Speaker]

He has appealed his sentence, and I do not need any lectures from the Front Bench either. I look forward to an apology. Am I going to get an apology?

[Chris Philp]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you. Home Secretary, will you take the advice that I have been given? I know you do not like it, but I am only working on the facts of the case.

[Suella Braverman]

Well, I will still say that what Labour MPs have done is outrageous, and I encourage them to apologise.

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[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this is about enabling the Government to properly help the most genuine and vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees who come to this country. Currently, because of the influx of illegal migrants, and because our modern slavery and asylum system has been overwhelmed thanks to the efforts of the people smuggling gangs, we are unable to help those genuine victims to whom we owe a clear duty.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The Government’s new asylum legislation is a sham that is set to worsen the backlog, because they do not have the facilities to detain tens of thousands of asylum seekers, or a returns agreement in place with the EU to send back those deemed inadmissible. For all her taxpayer funded photo ops this weekend, the Home Secretary has seemingly failed to bung the Rwandan Government enough money for them to increase the number of asylum seekers they are ready to take this year. For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be credible, yet these plans are just empty threats. Will she tell us where she expects to detain the tens of thousands of asylum seekers forecast to arrive this year, where she expects to remove them to, when Rwanda clearly has no intention of taking more than a very small proportion of those who she expects to arrive this year, and when this Government will get out of the way, so that Labour can deliver its five-point plan to stop the boat crossings?

[Suella Braverman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his approach to entertaining the House today, but let us compare what the Labour party has done over the last 10 days with what the Government have done.

In the last 10 days, the Prime Minister and I have secured a big deal with the French to increase cross-channel co-operation. I have presented and we have voted on measures to detain and swiftly remove illegal migrants. This weekend, I met refugees who have successfully been resettled in Rwanda and saw the accommodation that people will be using.

What has the Labour party done? Well, the shadow Home Secretary has been on Twitter. She is very good on Twitter. She has tweeted, in the last 10 days, Labour’s paltry excuse for a plan. Half of it is stuff we are already doing; the other half is its plan for open borders and unlimited migration. What I suggest Labour Members do is get off Twitter and get to Rwanda, and I will show them how to stop the boats.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Freedom from Torture has talked about the impact on torture survivors of the anti-asylum Bill, calling it

“a betrayal of the commitments made following the Shaw Review”.

Seven babies born to mothers in Home Office accommodation since 2020 have died, so it is no surprise that Women for Refugee Women and the Royal College of Midwives have opposed the Home Office’s plans. Scotland’s Children and Young People’s Commissioner has warned that the plans to detain and remove children breach this Government’s obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child. There is nothing about protecting asylum seekers’ welfare that the Bill will fix, so does the Home Secretary accept the harm that she is causing?

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[Suella Braverman]

It is thanks to this Government’s commitment to increasing the number of police officers that we will have many more resources on the frontline in forces throughout the country to tackle antisocial behaviour. I only wish that the hon. Lady would get behind our plans.

[Mr Speaker]

I all the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I see from the weekend papers that the Conservatives are about to introduce an antisocial behaviour strategy. After 13 years of doing nothing, of dismissing antisocial behaviour as low level and unimportant, apparently the strategy will include Labour’s plan to tackle fly-tipping, Labour’s plan to tackle graffiti and Labour’s plan for community payback. May I ask the Home Secretary which other Labour policies she is going to adopt? Would she like me to arrange a full briefing from the Labour party?

[Mr Speaker]

This is going to get tedious in the run-up to the local elections.

[Suella Braverman]

It really is, isn’t it, Mr Speaker? May I point out that Labour-run Croydon Council has just cut the graffiti cleaning team? Will the hon. Lady just give us some advice on how that has worked?

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[Robert Jenrick]

No, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. The Illegal Migration Bill makes it clear that we want to break the cycle of the human traffickers. We will do that by carefully considering cases and returning those people who can be returned to their home country, where it is safe to do so. In cases such as Albania, we have worked closely with the Government to put in place the procedures necessary to ensure that those people are carefully looked after and not at risk of re-trafficking. If that is not the case, they will be taken to a safe third country such as Rwanda where, once again, their needs will be looked after.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Just to correct the Minister, it was not the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) who made that criticism, but the Salvation Army, which the Home Office employs as its main contractor on trafficking.

I asked the Prime Minister this, and I got no answer, so I am trying again. When I worked on a Home Office contract, I met many women and children who had been brought here illegally to be repeatedly raped as sex slaves. The Prime Minister tweeted that such victims would be denied access to support from our modern slavery system—a tweet that will be an absolute delight to traffickers. How will we help to prevent a woman who is brought here illegally from being repeatedly raped if she is denied access to our modern slavery system?

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[Chris Philp]

I know that my hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner on this topic over many years following the appalling murder of his constituent. Yes, I will raise the issues that he mentions with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, who I am sure will be extremely receptive.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

This week, the five young men who murdered a 17-year-old boy from Poplar using knives were pictured for the first time. Those young men were sentenced to a total of 93 years in prison. Although sentencing is a form of justice, the reality is that this Government have lost their grip on preventing such violent crimes. Time and again, they have failed to act until it is too late—sticking-plaster politics at the heart of power. When will the Secretary of State show some leadership and lay out a proper plan for crime prevention?

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[Suella Braverman]

I know that my hon. Friend has been a powerful advocate on this subject, as well as on the issue of dangerous weapons, and I pay tribute to her for her brilliant work. The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 provides police with the powers to clamp down on the supply of nitrous oxide for non-legitimate use, but she is right, and I am clear, that the use and proliferation of nitrous oxide is unacceptable, and we will announce new measures soon.

[Mr Speaker]

We come now to the shadow Home Secretary.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

We welcome the Home Secretary back from her expensive interior design tour.

The Louise Casey review will be published tomorrow and is expected to be damning, with far-reaching findings. The Home Secretary has known about failures on standards and vetting in policing for a long time, so why has she repeatedly refused to bring in mandatory vetting standards and automatic suspension for officers under investigation for domestic abuse and sexual assault?

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[Suella Braverman]

I am proud of this Government’s track record on reducing crime and increasing the number of police officers. Since 2010, violent crime is down, robbery is down, neighbourhood crime is down and burglary is down. When the right hon. Lady talks about the Met, what I would gently say is that London has a Labour Mayor—as well as a Labour police and crime commissioner—who has failed to hold the Met to account properly. I am afraid I must encourage her to speak to her Labour colleague and ask him to do a better job of holding the Met to account.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to both sides that topical questions are for Back Benchers. If people want to ask a longer question, they should be called earlier and not wait for topicals.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

T2. As a host to Ukrainian refugees, I have been able to witness at first hand the difficulty and hardship when someone is separated from their family. My constituent Hazel Randall hosts a 24-year-old, Katya, who wanted to help her family reunite briefly in the UK, but they were faced with a £100 per person visa fee and a 200-mile round trip to the application centre to be able to travel to the UK. Will my right hon. Friend consider temporarily waiving tourist visa fees for Ukrainians wanting to visit their families?

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[Robert Jenrick]

I had a helpful and constructive meeting with my right hon. Friend and his constituents. No decision has been made with respect to RAF Scampton, and we will consider all of the things that were said in that meeting extremely carefully as we come to a final decision.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Neale Hanvey—not here.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

In 2021, only about 10% of rape allegations were referred by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service. The figure is even lower when we take into account other sexual offending. Has my hon. Friend ever received a satisfactory explanation from the police for such a lamentably poor referral rate?

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[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

On the back of last week’s Budget, I made a speech about industrial hemp. The industry is telling me that it can create 105,000 jobs and pay £1 billion in tax if it is allowed to grow—pun intended. I will be writing to the Minister to explain this in detail, but it would be really helpful if I could sit down with the relevant Minister and industry representatives so they can make their case.

[Mr Speaker]

Who wants it?

[Chris Philp]

Mr Speaker, I will take this question. The hon. Member and I have had a number of discussions on this topic. We are always happy to engage, discuss points of detail and hear industry representations, so if he would like to meet face to face to discuss it further, I would be very happy to do that.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

That completes questions.