Calais: Child Refugees

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

On the point about family reunion, the French Government are supporting some NGOs that are operating in that area and doing important work in the camps, ensuring that people get access to the type of advice they need. We will make sure that that work continues. The NGOs want to do the right thing. The Government want to do the right thing, both here in the UK and in France. That is why the relationship is so important and why we are working so closely together to ensure that children and families are reunited as soon as possible.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, how many of these children are under the age of 16 and do we have satisfactory reception facilities of a temporary nature before they are reunited with any family members?

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that question. I can tell him that 62% of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were 16 or 17; 26% were 14 or 15; and 8% were under 14. Of course, in this country the obligations under the Children Act mean that anyone aged under 18 will be taken into local authority care as a result of those duties.

Litvinenko Inquiry

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

References to that engagement in Mr Litvinenko’s background in Chechnya are contained in a report, which makes very interesting reading. The noble Lord asked about the UN Security Council. There are issues that could be addressed through that forum, but the fact that Russia is a permanent member of it makes some of the discussions that need to be had a little more difficult. However, we have said that the European Union plays a crucial part in our security here, and we have made it clear that NATO also plays a very important part, as do the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. We need to get the message out that this is unacceptable and to communicate that as widely as possible.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has rightly paid tribute to the courage and dignity of the widow and the bereaved son. Can he give the House an assurance that he is utterly confident of their security in this country and of their financial security for the future?

[Lord Bates]

That is a very good point, and it is characteristic of my noble friend to focus on the humanitarian aspects of this matter. I do not have a sufficient understanding of the situation but I give an undertaking to ensure that it is on the agenda when the Home Secretary meets Marina and Anatoly Litvinenko to make sure that any personal needs they have are met.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said. He made some extremely telling points, which should certainly be taken into account, but I want to confine my own brief remarks to another point. The elected House has spoken. It has spoken not just once but twice. It has not whispered or murmured but spoken very clearly, with an emphatic majority. At this late stage in the Bill, it is not for us to go into what has so often been called piecemeal constitutional change. It is for us to accept the limitations on our role and power: to concede, above all things, on the franchise to the elected House; to accept that we perfectly properly used the right that this House has to ask Members in the other place to think again. They thought, and they spoke emphatically. We now need to listen.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly—

Railways: Suicides

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord is right to point out that those have proven to be successful prevention barriers. The prevention barriers that I was referring to, those within Network Rail stations, physically divide the platforms and manage commuter traffic. We are looking at ensuring that prevention measures can be accommodated where possible in existing stations to prevent suicides. As I said, one suicide is one too many.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, how many mainline stations have a chaplaincy service where priests and leaders of other faiths are available to talk to people who may be in such distress that they contemplate this awful final act?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

In response to my noble friend, we are already working closely with the Samaritans, which I have already alluded to and who are the key providers of this support both to staff and to the travelling public. A poster campaign underlining that has also been launched.

Northern Powerhouse: Airports

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I think the noble Lord is clutching at straws. I have made clear the Government’s position. A decision will be made on the Airports Commission’s findings, and I ask him to wait until that is made.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I take it we are talking about this Christmas. Could we have an assurance from my noble friend that the announcement will be made to Parliament and not when Parliament has risen?

Airports: London

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I assure the noble Baroness that the Government are fully aware of that. Indeed, the Davies commission’s report highlighted the importance of establishing a community engagement forum, and that will form part and parcel of the Government’s reporting on the report.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Will my noble friend assure the House that this decision will be made while both Houses are in session, and that it will be followed by full debate in each House of Parliament?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I look toward my noble friend the Chief Whip. I am sure that with his professionalism in these matters he will table debates accordingly.

UK Opt-in to the Proposed Council Decision on the Relocation of Migrants within the EU (EUC Report)

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the right reverend Prelate in a very brief but powerful and moving speech. I am glad that he referred to the Ugandan Asians. I was a very new, young Member of another place, alongside my now noble friend Lord Tugendhat, in 1970, and when I look back upon that time, I think that it was the best decision of the Heath Government, notwithstanding any others. We behaved as good neighbours and received people into our midst, and we have received manifold benefits as a result of that. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Popat introduced a debate in this House to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the coming of the Ugandan Asians.

Of course, there is no exact parallel. Ugandan Asians, for the most part, had British passports. We were taking in those who had a degree of entitlement, although there were many voices raised at the time to suggest that they did not. However, it is an interesting parallel to draw. I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Tugendhat referred to the late, great Sir Nicholas Winton, who, with his Kindertransport, did so much—unheralded and unknown until recent years—to bring children here from one of the most evil and repressive regimes in history. Many of them settled and, indeed, we have at least one in our own midst, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who has talked movingly of that.

This is a humanitarian issue. We are talking about refugees, people who are fleeing evil regimes, situations of civil war and repression. It is not an unfair analogy to say that the evil of ISIL compares with the evil of Nazi Germany. I am grateful, as are others, to our noble friend Lady Prashar for the way in which she chairs our sub-committee and for the manner in which she introduced this debate.

We all understand the caution on the part of the Government when immigration was an issue that played large in the recent general election and when the policy of an open door excites sometimes very unfair, sometimes downright wrong responses from certain people. We are not talking of ordinary immigrants here. Of course, precautions have to be taken. It is necessary for fingerprints to be taken, because in the areas from which these poor people flee not only is there strife and civil war but there are those, some of them from our country, who are fomenting trouble and are guilty of terrible things. We have to be careful, but being careful does not mean that you have to slam the door or refuse to open it.

I very much hope that the Government will heed the voices heard in this debate. I hope that they will recognise that this great humanitarian crisis—the greatest, as has been said, since the end of the Second World War—behoves us to behave as good neighbours. None of us is saying that there should be a mandatory scheme. You cannot order people to be kind, as the right reverend Prelate made plain in his remarks, but a voluntary scheme is one of which we should be part, as long as the renegotiation, of which we should be part, produces a workable one. I believe that it can and should; I hope that it will.

The noble Lord, Lord Jay, has reminded us that we are a world power. We have a seat on the United Nations Security Council. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, reminded us, we are a leading member of the European Union, one of the largest nations. If we remain within it, as I devoutly hope that we will, within a decade or so we will probably be the most powerful economic nation within the European Union.

Of course we have national obligations, and it is by recognising national responsibilities in the past that our country has become a great country. In the 19th century, we opened our doors to people. In the 20th century, we opened our doors to people. In the 21st century, we must be prepared to take into our midst not unlimited numbers—that is not possible—but the sort of people for whom Nicholas Winton fought to gain admittance to the United Kingdom.

I sincerely hope that my noble friend who will be replying to this debate, who has an enviable reputation as a Minister of sensitivity, compassion and thought, will be able to give us an encouraging response, because this is a modest report which makes a modest request. It is fitting that the last debate before we break for the summer should be one where we look not inward but outward and seek to recognise the plight of those whose sufferings we cannot even begin properly to imagine and to say to them: “Yes, we will behave as good neighbours”.

Surveillance Legislation

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

That is a fair point. We have been around this track several times before. The Joint Committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Blencathra looked at the communications data Bill and did a very thorough piece of work. We then had the Intelligence and Security Committee report and the Anderson review, which took more than a year to complete. We then had the RUSI review. People are coming together towards a consensus, which should mean that the passage of the Bill, as a result of the diligent work that has gone on before, should be smoother and quicker and therefore we can get the powers to the security agencies that they need to keep us safe.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, when the Bill is debated and the papers are produced, could we also have a paper detailing so far as possible the infinite damage caused by the refugee in the Ecuadorian embassy and Edward Snowden?

[Lord Bates]

I do not know whether they will be directly linked in the same package, but of course it is open to us to reflect on that. The reality is that our security services do an incredibly important job in keeping us safe against a threat that is getting more severe, as we have seen not only in this country but also overseas in recent weeks.

ISIL

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Clearly, it is the defeat of the poisonous ideology behind these attacks. On the territorial point, the noble Lord will be aware of our activities in the airstrikes. The RAF has flown 1,010 missions in support of the coalition activity in Iraq. The result of that is that ISIL’s advance has been stopped, and it has lost, according to American sources, some 700 square kilometres of land. Clearly, the point about Syria is pressing. We are providing some training and support there. The Prime Minister said on Monday that there must be a “full-spectrum response” to deal with ISIL,

“at its source, in places like Syria, Iraq and Libya”.

British aircraft are delivering the second-highest number of airstrikes over Iraq. Our surveillance aircraft are already assisting other countries with their operations over Syria and British forces are helping to train the moderate Syrian opposition. That is our response, but we are in no doubt whatever as to what the task is: to defeat ISIL.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend share my sense of incredulity at the reported comments of the director-general of the BBC, who says that the BBC should remain neutral between Islamic State and the West? Is not this an utterly incomprehensible statement? Did the BBC remain neutral when we faced the Nazi threat? Is not this threat, in its way, as vicious and as evil?

[Lord Bates]

As a Conservative politician, I am on sensitive ground here in being invited to remark on the BBC and feelings of incredulity. This is the serious point behind the Prevent strategy: if ISIL is to be defeated, it requires everyone to speak up for what British values are, to stand firm for them and to speak out against those who seek to undermine them.

International Students: Post-study Visa

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Will my noble friend reflect for a moment and consider the wisdom of putting in writing for every higher education institution what he said to this House this afternoon, so that all potential graduates know what the position will truly be when they graduate?

[Lord Bates]

Obviously my ministerial colleague has responsibility for universities within BIS. I will certainly talk with him, and also with my honourable friend at the Home Office, James Brokenshire, who has responsibility for this area there, and see if we can do just that.