Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am extremely disappointed: I have sat here since 9.30, unlike the Members of the SNP and the Green party who have only come in recently and not all of whom have stayed. They are trying to stop democracy in this Chamber. They do not want us to speak. Most of us have been here a long time and probably intend to stay till 2.30. It is a bit rich that they should try and stop democracy on private Members’ Bills when no private Member’s Bill is more important than any other.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on securing a Second Reading of his Bill, particularly after sleeping in the corridors of this place to ensure that the subject would be aired. SNP and Green Members would not have done that. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for taking the Bill forward. I believe it was national homelessness week recently. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough is not in that situation, but was merely sleeping in the corridor to ensure that his Bill was listed and heard in this place, which I bet none of those SNP and Green Members would have done.

As other Members will have noted, the House debated an almost identical Bill this time last year, when a few of the Members who support this Bill were candidates trying to secure election. The Conservative manifesto platform on which they ran explicitly pledged to tackle criminality and the abuse of free movement. That included negotiating with the EU to introduce stronger powers to enable us to deport criminals and stop them coming back, and tougher and longer re-entry bans for all those who abuse free movement.

I have little doubt that the sentiment of this concise Bill—preventing foreign nationals who commit a crime in the UK from remaining or returning—is supported by the vast majority in this House and of the public. Britain is one of the most generous and hospitable nations in the world, and every one of us should be proud to be lucky enough to call this country home. Understandably, it is also one of the most sought-after countries to live in. Rightly, we have to be careful about how many people we allow into the UK, and we must have strong protections in place to ensure that those who pose a threat to our way of life and our established customs and traditions do not have the chance to come here. I believe that we do have provisions firmly in place and that this Government, and the Conservative-led Government in the previous Parliament, deserve credit for the work they did to tighten restrictions and increase resources to let the border police and Home Office do their job.

Because we are such a generous nation, there are few things more frustrating to the public than when those who come here and abuse our hospitality do not adhere to our laws and waste taxpayers’ money going through our legal system. There have been high-profile cases of the processes for removing individuals from the United Kingdom taking too long and costing too much money. Members have today given many examples of that. Again, that is understandably frustrating for the public when the obvious solution is to remove them from the country and not let them back in.

It is especially frustrating when human rights are invoked as part of the reason they cannot be removed. This week saw International Women’s Day and I think of the many women and girls around the world who suffer real human rights abuses without legal recourse, not the tenuous human rights claims that have been used to stop the eviction of criminals from the United Kingdom. I was in Nigeria last week and met the families of the girls who have been abducted by Boko Haram. We are coming up to two years since their abduction, and the world should be shocked that many of them are still missing. Those girls have suffered abuses of their human rights, whereas some of the human rights claims evoked in this country are total rubbish.

There is particular frustration about the over-generous use of article 8 of the European convention on human rights, as my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) explained, which prevents deportation of EEA and non-EEA nationals if it would breach a person’s right to private and family life. How a criminal’s right to family life has ever been allowed to supersede the safety of the British public I shall never understand. It is also hard to believe that Greece is an unsafe country to return its nationals to, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering mentioned.

I therefore have a lot of sympathy with the Bill and the Members who have brought it forward. I also admire its simplicity and brevity; the main part, clause 1(1), is just 43 words long. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to support the Bill as it stands, because I believe that we already have functioning procedures in place to keep criminals out. The language of the Bill, brief though it is, is too ambiguous. We would have to withdraw from a number of conventions and treaties that benefit us in order to implement it. It also disregards any idea of individuals being able to rehabilitate themselves, which is something this Government are making positive efforts with in this Parliament.

As I am sure the Minister will outline, the UK already has provisions for deporting foreign criminals enshrined in law. They have not always been as strong as they are now, so the previous Government deserve credit for the steps they took to address the problems of deporting foreign criminals who commit a crime in the UK. Perhaps the Government should, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering mentioned, look at simplifying the four definitions of how people can be returned to their country: if they had just one, it might be easier for judges to implement.

In the Immigration Act 2014, the Government set out that the law should be on the side of the public, and the starting point is the expectation that foreign criminals will be deported. The Act also rightly changed the law so that, when there is no risk of serious, irreversible harm, foreign criminals can be deported first and have their appeal heard later. It also changed the rules so that those who do have a right to appeal will be able to appeal only once, thus avoiding wasting time and UK taxpayers’ money on drawn-out legal appeals, which have happened far too often in the past. That is on top of the long-standing rules we have in place on deporting foreign nationals, including on the automatic deportation of non-EEA nationals who are convicted in the UK and who receive a single custodial sentence of 12 months or more for one conviction. It is shocking to hear that judges sometimes say they will give only an 11-month sentence so that people do not have to be deported.

A non-EEA person who has been deported is already prohibited from entering the UK while the deportation order against them remains in force. Such orders are indefinite, unless a decision is made to remove them. That leaves open the possibility that a person who commits a crime when they are young can appeal to return later in their life when their character is proven to have changed. The Bill affords no such second chances and proposes no scale for different offences.

There is a range of petty crimes that could technically merit a prison sentence but for which courts may, based on the individual, judge that not to be necessary. The Bill is rigid in its definition of what crime has to be committed for someone to be excluded from the UK, referring to

“any offence for which a term of imprisonment may be imposed by”

a UK court of law. Such strict terms—free from provision for any individual consideration, which our legal system currently has—are a flaw in the Bill.

We already have in place a tough system to refuse visas or entrance to individuals applying to come to the UK who have a criminal history in the UK or elsewhere. I know it is not Government policy to publicise exclusion decisions, but I believe the Home Secretary when she says those measures have successfully kept hundreds of criminals out of the UK. That, however, does not get to the heart of the issue the Bill is aimed at—a swift repeal of European law, which prevents EEA nationals from being excluded from the UK if they are sentenced. Under the European directive on freedom of movement, more demanding grounds than previous criminal conviction are required to deport EEA national offenders who have resided in a host member state for over five or 10 years. I was pleased that the Prime Minister made easing restrictions on deporting EU national offenders part of his renegotiation deal and, in particular, that the Commission agreed to examine the five and 10-year residence thresholds for expulsion.

The Bill does not acknowledge that the freedom of movement directive contains restrictions. I agree that there has been abuse of free movement in the EU, but EU offenders who commit a crime in the UK can already be removed and kept out, with a re-entry ban of one year. I hope the Prime Minister does not give up on his efforts to have that re-entry ban extended. The Secretary of State already has the power to exclude those deemed a serious threat to public policy or public security.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pauline Latham]

I thought SNP Members wanted us to conclude, but I will give way.

[Dr Cameron]

First, I must declare an interest, having previously completed risk assessments in this regard. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is important that foreign national offenders receive comprehensive risk assessments so that appropriate judgments can be made?

[Pauline Latham]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but it might be difficult to do comprehensive risk assessments, and that would delay the process. If somebody has been convicted, they need to go back to their own country immediately.

As part of the Prime Minister’s EU renegotiation deal, the EU Commission will clarify the meanings of the “serious” and “imperative” grounds on which we can exclude people from the UK, removing ambiguity and making it easier for our immigration services to carry out their duties.

For those who are removed and deemed to be a threat to the UK, we still have border checks in place to make sure that they cannot be allowed in. This Government and the Conservative-led previous Government deserve credit for strengthening the data our border police have through the warnings index, specifically those on whether anyone coming through our border is subject to an outstanding deportation order. The Bill would also do away with the Schengen information system, which allows European states to share information on criminals, thereby preventing them from getting into the UK in the first place.

Ultimately, although I agree with the sentiment behind the Bill—all of the speakers have spoken powerfully, mainly in favour of the Bill, and I understand where they are coming from—we already have in place a lot of what it is trying to achieve, namely the exclusion of those non-UK individuals under discussion from enjoying the opportunities and hospitality that this country offers. Therefore, I do not believe the Bill is necessary.