Windrush Lessons Learned Review

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

I aim to run this to about 12.15 pm.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

As someone who has served in the military with soldiers from the Windrush generation, may I say that we never once thought of them as anything other than British? We looked in their eyes, and the eyes that looked back were British to the bone.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the Minister, I will ask the Chair of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, Jessica Morden, to make an announcement.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The House can see the note on the Order Paper saying that this instrument has not yet been considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. However, I can confirm that the Joint Committee has met this afternoon, considered the instrument and has nothing to report concerning the draft order.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for that information; the House can now proceed with good ease.

Points-based Immigration System

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am expecting to run this statement until around five o’clock.

[Priti Patel]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new position and wish her every success in the role. However, I am a little disappointed, because it sounds like she has not actually read the policy statement, and she has used her remarks to conflate—[Interruption.] If the Leader of the Opposition will allow me to continue, instead of being rude and interrupting, I will come on to address the specific points. He should have the courtesy and the patience to listen. I appreciate that he is in a hurry—

Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend raises very important issues. The Government will address them in tomorrow’s emergency legislation and the forthcoming counter- terrorism Bill, which will consider appropriate sentences for people who seek to do a great deal of harm to our country.

[Mr Speaker]

I just want to reassure the House that, in fairness to the Home Secretary and me, we took very seriously threats made against MPs and candidates during the last election, so much so that we were constantly in touch to make sure that support was being given. That support will continue to be available to all MPs. Please, if a threat is made to any MP, make sure that you report it. The House and I and the Home Secretary will ensure that your safety comes first. Please do not shy away from reporting any incidents.

Deportation Flight to Jamaica

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I should tell the House that I am aiming to run the urgent question for around 45 minutes.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Surely voters throughout the country for all parties would expect serious and persistent offenders to be deported in accordance with the law. Will my hon. Friend tell the House the minimum threshold at which somebody becomes classified as a serious and persistent offender, so that we can understand the criteria being applied to put people on these flights?

Policing and Crime

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

We will have a seven-minute limit from now on, starting with a maiden speech, with no interruptions, from Danny Kruger.

Public Services

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Everybody will get equal time with a six-minute limit.

Dangerous Drugs

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I meant to mention the following case when I spoke earlier: a family in Norwich have just had to spend well over £1,000 on a private prescription for their young son who has epilepsy. They will not as a family be able to afford more than a few weeks’-worth of paying for this privately. It is ludicrous that that family, desperately in need of help for their young boy, cannot get it through the NHS; I think there have been only three prescriptions so far under the NHS.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I have allowed the debate to drift a little away from the scope of the debate, but I do not want it to drift too far. I ask Members to bear that in mind.

[Pete Wishart]

That is the point. It is all about this statutory instrument because it will help people like the family the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. It will supply the evidence and research so that that could happen. It is unacceptable that people, because they do not have this in place, are having to go abroad and are still being arrested when they come back to the United Kingdom. That was mentioned in the report from the Health and Social Care Committee today, so progress has been made, but we are looking forward to looking at the whole issue of cannabis when we go Portugal to see how decriminalisation has worked there. Portugal had drug deaths on a par with what Scotland is currently experiencing, but the number has been cut to a manageable level because of its approach to cannabis and decriminalisation.

As I say, yesterday’s session of the Scottish Affairs Committee was fascinating. Let me tell the Minister something that the assistant chief constable of Scotland said because it is important for this particular measure. He said:

“There are 61,500 problematic users in Scotland just now. It is growing in number. For the vast majority, the end for them is death. And the criminal justice process is actually pushing people into a place where there is more harm.”

That is from an assistant chief constable responsible for keeping people safe.

Someone on the Minister’s own advisory council said:

“We are seeing police creating ways to reduce the harm done by the Misuse of Drugs Act. If we fully implemented the law of possession, we would be creating harm.”

That is what we are hearing from everybody, but we are hearing nothing from the Government because they will not come to our Committee to tell us what they actually feel about this; they are not prepared to come to defend this, which is totally unacceptable. We now need to hear that they are prepared to come in front of us.

When the Government do talk about drugs issues, the policy is, “We don’t want to send the wrong signal.” A fat lot of good that does to people six feet under the ground as a result of failed drug policies, part of the ever-increasing drug deaths.

The Home Secretary is happy to dispense with all the compelling evidence—everything he hears, all the international examples about drug consumption rooms— because, as he said, of his own childhood experience in his own personal neighbourhood. The Government know the evidence about drug consumption rooms. The Government have even accepted the evidence about drug consumption rooms. The only thing the Government have not done is do anything about it. People are dying. Do something about it. This works: all international evidence shows that drug consumption rooms make a difference. They stop people dying and allow them to get the treatment and recovery services that they should be entitled to.

It is appalling that the Government have one message on this: the belief that a drugs war can be prosecuted and won. All we need is the kids from “Grange Hill” and Nancy Reagan singing “Just say no.” It is time that this Government grew up and accepted the real range of issues on this matter.

We know that a health approach to drugs issues is required. We know that problematic drug use is a result of a complex cocktail of deprivation, poor mental health, trauma, stigma and addiction disorders, but the Government’s policy does nothing about this.

We want the Government to attend our Committee to defend their current drugs policy. I say to the Minister again: for his summing up, he can get his notes from his civil servants and get them to say that somebody will be coming to our Committee who will give us evidence and is prepared to defend the Government’s policy, because right now this is unacceptable.

Serco and Asylum Seeker Lock-change Evictions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

I agree that it is urgent, as my hon. Friend suggests. I am sure that the Minister will address that, because there is a very real concern about it, not just from independent advocacy groups such as the Scottish Refugee Council but from local government and the Scottish Government. I will come to that later.

The priority remains to help all those facing asylum destitution, especially those due to receive the 14-day notice-to-quit letter followed by the seven-day lock- change notice. Destitution advisers provide a holistic assessment of need and ongoing support and co-ordination, including for individuals under threat of eviction through lock changes by Serco. All these individuals are known to the Home Office. The process of submitting new evidence for a refused asylum claim is lengthy and complicated for most, and they might not have an option to return because of fear of persecution. To simply say that they “refuse” to leave is not accurate. We must emphasise that the actions of Serco are, in this sphere, functions of a public nature and therefore come under the scope of the Human Rights Act 1998. This legal status was confirmed in a Court of Session decision.

It is important that we highlight just some of the individuals who are under threat of eviction by Serco and the Home Office. We have been advised by the Home Office, and by the Minister at a meeting I had with her earlier this week, that those with vulnerabilities will not receive such letters, but that does not seem to be the case. I am going to mention a number of cases that have been presented to me by asylum charities. Everyone here knows the safety and belonging that a home brings, but today in Glasgow we are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis of hundreds of women and men who sought sanctuary in the UK. The Conservative Government have none the less retained their basic inhumanity in the asylum process. Since last week, they have been ruthlessly rolling out their privatised hostile environment in Scotland’s largest city.

Courageous women like Mariam, who has fled abuse in Eritrea but been refused refugee protection by the asylum system, should never have received a notice to quit. Why? Because Mariam has depression, is receiving medication and is being helped by a community psychiatric nurse. Serco has ordered her to get out of her house through a lock-change letter, which means no protection against street homelessness, with no rule of law or court oversight, callously causing trauma and tearing her away with immediate effect from her only source of shelter. Do we leave people like Mariam on the streets, with their mental health going through the floor, to be a sitting target for traffickers or exploiters, when the outgoing Prime Minister said that tackling trafficking was a top priority? Does the Minister realise that those sorts of decisions feed exploitation and are a boon to organised crime, while destroying lives? Surely the decent thing is to ensure that Mariam’s lock change is cancelled.

Another concern that has been brought to my attention is that letters are being delivered by two men in uniform, sometimes to women who live on their own. I have a real concern about that, and I find it completely and utterly unacceptable. For a woman who has fled her country to seek shelter and asylum in the UK, two men in uniform visiting the house with letters will mean something completely different from what it would perhaps mean to us. It is unacceptable, and I hope the Minister will have something to say about that.

I have a number of other cases to mention. A 34-year-old woman from Eritrea was issued with an eviction letter dated 12 June 2019—not 20 June, as MPs have been advised—telling her to leave her accommodation by 25 June. The letter wrongly stated that she had received a positive decision. It also incorrectly advised her that she must leave and that she would have to apply to Glasgow City Council for rehousing. Her hopes were raised that she had got refugee status. A week later, she received another letter dated 19 June, again telling her to leave by 25 June. This time, the letter wrongly stated that her asylum claim was refused and that she must leave her accommodation. In fact, she has an ongoing asylum claim and is due to attend a further submissions appointment in Liverpool on 4 October 2019. This woman’s claim for asylum is based on her nationality and the fact that, as a Pentecostal Christian, she would be at risk of persecution should she return.

Another case presented to me is a 72-year-old gentleman who is an Iraqi national but has lived most of his life in Syria. He left Syria when the war started. He has lost contact with his wife and children in Europe and is in Glasgow alone. He speaks Arabic. Serco sent him a lock-change eviction letter dated 19 June, telling him to leave by 2 July 2019. He has a serious heart condition, for which he has had a heart operation. He also has a problem with his spine and breathing problems, which leaves him bedridden most of each day. He is particularly vulnerable due to his age, his ill health and English not being his first language, and he is traumatised by his experiences. It is a real concern that he will be unable to safeguard his own wellbeing and is at risk of neglect. Positive Action in Housing has asked Glasgow City Council’s social work department to carry out a community care assessment and is seeking legal support.

Another case is that of a 58-year-old woman who received a letter from Serco dated 21 June telling her that her entitlement to support ends on 23 June—less than two days’ notice. If she leaves her accommodation, she will be destitute. Her section 4 application is under way, and her legal case is ongoing. This woman left Gambia to ensure that her daughters cannot be subject to female genital mutilation practices.

Another case I have is that of a constituent who received a letter on 12 June, and who visited this Parliament as part of a delegation from the British Red Cross. She is an African lady, who identifies herself as a member of the LGBT community, and she feels she cannot go back to her country. She was issued with a letter on 12 June, not 20 June.

It appears that Serco is treating individuals with complex cases as one mass of people, and this is likely to lead to unjust decisions and vulnerable people with a genuine reason to be here being ejected from their accommodation. As a landlord, Serco is ill-equipped to pass judgment on someone’s asylum status. Walking unannounced into someone’s accommodation and rummaging through their private belongings does not make that person an immigration officer. The people Serco is attempting to evict are not subject to deportation orders. The Home Office support has stopped for now, but that does not mean that their cases—to put it in inverted commas—“failed”. They can still engage with the legal process and apply for support to be reinstated. Appeals and judicial reviews do happen and are often successful.

I want to come on to the local government view. I have a letter, which I will place in the Library, from Susan Aitken, the leader of Glasgow City Council, and a note of the meeting of local authorities passing on their concerns about asylum accommodation contracts and processes. There are pressures in different areas, including the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, and Glasgow, as incoming contractors face the need to procure a large number of properties in a very short period of time. It is my concern that Serco is advertising the fact that the reason why it needs to remove asylum seekers from their accommodation is so that it can hand back the keys to the original landlords, which does not seem to me to be an acceptable reason.

There is very real concern from local government that the transition deadline will not be met in some areas and that contingency accommodation may have to be used. The distribution of asylum seekers across the country is very uneven, with some areas of high concentration, including Glasgow. Local authority leaders from other parts of the UK agree that we need to progress the funding issues, as local government is left to pick up the tab for the decisions made by both Serco and the Home Office. In their view, the Home Office is failing to address issues for which it has responsibility and seems unable to provide up-to-date data on the number and locations of asylum seekers. When data is produced, it is often incomplete and contradicts information available from other sources.

In the view of local authorities, nothing is being done by the Home Office to convince other local authorities in the UK to participate in the dispersal programme. However, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, the fact that asylum seeker lock-change evictions are going ahead has resulted in some local authorities suggesting that they would not want to participate in that sort of process. Local authorities participating in the dispersal programme are still waiting for the Home Office response to their request for funding, and they see no evidence that that has been taken to Her Majesty’s Treasury.

I think it would be fair to say that we have a number of questions about what is going on in relation both to the contracts, and to this inhumane move to subject asylum seekers to lock-change evictions and make them homeless. However, before I ask those questions, I have to say that I am very concerned at the behaviour of Serco. I want to reiterate again that two men should not approach women living on their own or with children, going in with threatening letters and handing them over in that way. That is something I want to hear the Minister condemn, and I want that practice put a stop to.

Can the Minister answer the following questions? I have a number of questions for her. Does she intend to come to Glasgow to witness a lock-change eviction? When is she next coming to Glasgow to discuss the asylum accommodation contract with asylum charities and the council? Does she realise what it would mean for someone to come home and find that their locks have been changed? May we have a guarantee that no one in Glasgow who has vulnerabilities as defined by the Home Office safeguarding policy has or will receive 14 days’ notice to quit, or a seven-day lock-change notice?

Will the Minister publish the Home Office safeguarding policy? To my mind, the four cases that I presented involve people who would qualify as having a vulnerability under that policy. Will the Minister say more about what the Home Office defines as the over-staying group? Does it have a list of those in that group? Will she confirm whether refused case management and immigration enforcement teams are planning to start working through the over-staying list? Are they planning to detain people at their reporting events in Glasgow? Can she assure me that that will not happen, and that it has never been discussed since the first announcement about Serco evictions in July 2018? Can the Minister provide an assurance that no one in the over-staying group will be visited by immigration enforcement in their asylum accommodation, purely because they are classed as an over-stayer?

As a result of what has been put forward, the Home Office is required to make a decision. You will have heard the rumours, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I have, about the shredding machines in Departments being in overdrive and working overtime, prior to the new Prime Minister and new regime.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I have not heard that.

[Chris Stephens]

Well you have heard the rumour now. Given the facts presented today, the Home Office must now call a halt to these eviction notices. Everything we have been told by the Home Office in good faith about how this system will work in practice has been shown not to be the case. Letters were issued before 20 June, although we were told that they were not. We were told that those with vulnerabilities would not receive letters, but that was not the case. The style of how those letters are being delivered is completely unacceptable on any level, as I hope the Minister will agree. As a result of the facts I have put forward, which were given to us by asylum charities, will the Minister call a halt to these evictions?

The Home Office and Serco must know that they have picked the wrong city—the city of Mary Barbour and the rent strikes just over a century ago; the city of the great Glasgow girls who campaigned against child detention and ensured they got their school friend back. Thousands of volunteers have signed up to the living rent campaign, and they are on standby and ready to step in and prevent these evictions. The Government should be in no doubt that if Glaswegians are required to use their human rights, such as the right to peaceful assembly, to protect the basic human rights of others, that is what will be done, and I will join my fellow Glaswegians to prevent these evictions.

Immigration

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call the Minister, on her birthday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

I am tempted not to give way, because later this afternoon I will asking for the leave of the House to wind up the debate as well as open it. That will give me an opportunity to respond to points that Members have made in their contributions, which I hope will be more helpful than simply responding to an intervention.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. It may be helpful to say that somebody might object, which would prevent that from happening, so I think the Minister ought to show generosity now.

[Caroline Nokes]

indicated assent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I suggest to Members that we work on about 10 minutes each to make sure everybody gets equal time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr]

The hon. and learned Lady talks about respect, but what I heard from the Westminster leader of the SNP at Prime Minister’s questions was a very long way away from respect. In two successive PMQs, last week and this week, the Westminster leader of the SNP accused a serving Member of this House of being a racist, and today it was said, without any challenge, that the same right hon. Member who serves in this House had made a career out of telling lies. So let us not hear anything about respect from SNP Members.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I think the Chair said something about it previously. I was not in the Chair at the time. Mr Speaker did not hear it. I do not want to get into a debate about it.

[Stephen Kerr]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The truth is that this debate is a great opportunity to talk about the positive side of immigration: to talk about how people have come from all over the world to make their home here in the United Kingdom and in Scotland in particular, and how they make an invaluable contribution to our communities and our economy. But the SNP never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Luckily, Government Members have heard already how immigration policy can be run at a UK level to take account of the local and sectoral issues throughout our economy. I would like to add my voice to those genuinely speaking up for Scotland, rather than casting around for more grievance and more excuses to talk about constitutional politics. Simply transferring responsibility for Scotland’s immigration to Holyrood, as the SNP proposes, entirely misses the point of how a UK-wide approach will ensure a positive environment to attract the very people our economy needs.

We cannot afford to have different systems operating in the United Kingdom, where people must be able to move freely around. I referred earlier to the various hugely influential voices in Scotland on this issue—the director of CBI Scotland, Tracy Black, the Food and Drink Federation Scotland, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce and NFU Scotland—who are saying that we should use Scotland’s influence to lead a UK-wide system that meets our needs. That is exactly what I am trying to do by making this contribution.

The proposals for a future immigration policy, however, as laid out in the White Paper, will cause real damage to the UK economy and must be changed. The truth is that the diverse needs within Scotland need to be accommodated within a flexible policy framework based on reality, rather than on an academic theory. Scotland’s needs for an immigration policy are the same as those in any other part of the UK. In our fishing communities in the north-east of Scotland, we find similar issues to those in communities in the south-west of England. In our industrial heartlands in central Scotland, we find the same issues as in the west midlands of England. In places such as Stirling, with its rural agricultural base and tourist attractions, we find the same issues as in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cornwall and many other parts of England.