Knife Crime

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right when he talks of the tragic deaths, lives being cut short, all those opportunities that are forever gone and the impact on those families. I think he was referring to the public health approach and asking why it would require a consultation. That is because it is supposed to be a statutory approach. We could have taken the non-statutory route. That would have been quicker, frankly, but I think it would have been less effective because I need every Department—colleagues have mentioned the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education—to make this a priority. We have talked about the experience in the other parts of the UK and in other countries. It has been a statutory approach. With very few exceptions, there is a requirement with such an approach to have a consultation to make sure it is legally watertight.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Warwickshire police are currently recruiting an additional 150 officers and extra officers are part of the solution here. My right hon. Friend has talked about a wider cross-Government approach and using resources of the whole of the Government. Can he say more about how we can get those resources and that approach down to the local level, where it is really going to make a difference?

[Sajid Javid]

I welcome the announcement by Warwickshire police. On other resources, a vital one that I mentioned earlier is support for organisations, mainly community organisations, to tackle the issue early on, through early intervention, especially to try to turn young people away from what might become a life of crime. The early intervention youth fund has already allocated funds to more than 20 projects, but the new youth endowment fund, which I said I would be publishing information on very shortly, will be allocating some £200 million very shortly to do just that work—early intervention.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking the time to raise his important constituency case. I am absolutely happy to confirm that I will meet him to go through the specifics in detail.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

T9.   I welcome the work that the Home Secretary and the Minister for Policing have done to secure more resources for our police, facilitating Warwickshire police to now recruit an additional 150 officers. Given the impending spending review, will my right hon. Friend continue to push for further police funding, to ensure that the police have the resources they need, and also look at fairer funding for county areas?

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

I thank my hon. Friend, not least for his representations to me on behalf of Warwickshire in the run-up to the funding settlement. I am delighted that his constituents will have access to more police officers. I give my assurance to him and other Members who are concerned about the fair funding of policing that police funding is the priority for the Home Secretary and me in the CSR, and within that we have made a commitment to look again at how resources are allocated across the system.

Police Grant Report

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I need to make some progress.

The police will continue to face pressures, and my commitment to them is ongoing. The Policing Minister has also shown unwavering support and will of course continue to do so. This is the last settlement before the next spending review, which will set out the resources available to the police in future years. I will continue to make police resourcing a priority in that spending review. Once again, though, it is of course a two-way street. The police must continue to improve efficiency, productivity and effectiveness, to provide value for money, and to give the public the top-class service they deserve. I will back them in the spending review, but any increased support must come with an important condition: the police must commit to a long-term action plan to further improve effectiveness and productivity. I am determined to give them the investment that they need, but it must be used efficiently. We have the best police force in the world, but they must also be as effective as they can be.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

In Warwickshire, we have one of the smallest police forces in the country, but this year’s and last year’s settlements are enabling the police and crime commissioner to put in a further 150 police officers and staff. Will my right hon. Friend look carefully at the funding for county areas, which are under great pressure from a lot of criminality and problems coming from the city areas, which have traditionally been funded a lot more significantly than the county areas?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and it draws me back to my earlier comment in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) about the national funding formula for policing. We are committed to looking at that when we consider longer term funding through the spending review process.

The Government are determined to respond to the threat from terrorism, organised crime and serious violence, and the police are of course a vital partner in that work. We must give them the resources they need to get the job done, which is why we are proposing the largest increase in police funding since 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

It is good to see my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister on the Front Bench. I have pursued him with vigour for some months on the issue of police funding, including for Warwickshire. I thank him for the efforts he has made, the case he has put to the Treasury and what has been achieved so far, with additional police funding this year of up to £970 million. My constituents will be pleased because we face some significant issues in my constituency at the moment. We suffer a lot of cross-border crime that comes from the larger cities in the west midlands— particularly crimes such as car key burglary, car jackings and burglary—and that has weighed heavily on my constituency in the last two years or so. I am therefore extremely grateful that extra resources will go to Warwickshire police, which it can use to bolster not only its response, but the prevention of those crimes.

Before I talk more about funding, I want to thank the police officers of Warwickshire for their determination and for the hard work they do for the people of Warwickshire. They do not always get it right, but they get it right in the vast majority of situations, which the public appreciate. The public in my area want to work with the police. We have a neighbourhood watch Facebook group made up of 15,000 residents, who provide the police with information about issues across my constituency.

For example, around Christmas time, there was a massive spate of car crime, including car key burglaries. Because of the work of the community and the police together, the person committing those crimes was apprehended. Unfortunately they only admitted to 15 of those crimes and, despite perpetrating a spate of crimes across the area and being a repeat offender, they received a measly three-month sentence. That is not a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister, but it is certainly one for the Justice Secretary. We must support police in our communities, but our courts and judicial system must also support our police to ensure that when they do their job, they are backed up.

Warwickshire is one of the smallest forces in the country, as the Minister knows. Our police and crime commissioner has been very happy with the last two settlements. He ran a significant consultation with local people on the precept to which 2,400 people responded, the vast majority of whom confirmed that they would be willing to spend an extra £2 per month—£24 a year—to see more police on the streets. As a result of last year’s changes, we see 50 more officers on the streets in Warwickshire. As a result of this year’s changes, we will see another 85 officers and another 15 police staff, including a number of investigators, who are extremely important in bringing offenders to book.

There is a balance to be struck with council tax. The public in my area have been quite content to pay some extra on their council tax in the last two years, but I am not sure that that is a good long-term strategy. Opposition Front Benchers seem to say that council tax takes money from local taxpayers and Government money is not taxpayers’ money, but of course it is all taxpayers’ money, so we need to strike a balance. Any money that the Government or police forces spend is taxpayers’ money.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Marcus Jones]

I will not give way because of the time limit that Mr Deputy Speaker said we should observe. We have to get the balance right between the money we collect in national taxes and give to our police service and the money we collect locally.

Finally, I want to mention another local issue that I hope will be picked up in the spending review, which is what I call “Warwexit”. Unfortunately, as the Minister will be aware, the strategic alliance between West Mercia police and Warwickshire police, through which each force has saved £35 million, has been abruptly brought to an end by West Mercia. I hope that in the spending review, the Minister and the Treasury will look carefully at the impact on Warwickshire, bearing in mind that it was not part of bringing the arrangement to an end.

I welcome the settlement. It is a good step in the right direction, but we still need to do more to make sure that our police have the right resources to keep our local population safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I totally agree. The police should be the last resort, not the first, as they are in many cases. The Government cannot cut services and expect the people who use them just to go away.

The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) is right. The motion refers to the

“Police Grant Report (England and Wales)”;

it does not say “Police Grant Report (England and Wales) and the ability to raise council tax”. The Government are spinning this as an increase in funding, but it is not. The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) said that we must get the right balance between national and local funding, so I hope that his leaflets will include the fact that he is going to vote for an increase in taxes locally, but I am unsure that they will.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I will not.

Let me turn to what the motion is actually about. Durham police’s budget will not change. In extra core funding and the contribution towards pensions, which has already been mentioned, the force will receive £2.9 million, but all that money will be used to cover pensions, which were until recently the Government’s responsibility. The precept will raise £4 million, but after taking account of inflation, pay increases and increases in fees levied by the Government, there is no extra cash at all.

Somebody referred to the precept as a magic money tree, but that is not the case for forces such as Durham, which gets 75% of its funding from core funding and 25% from the precept. Surrey, for example, receives 55% from the precept and 45% from core funding. The Home Secretary said that police and crime commissioners’ flexibility to increase costs for band D properties will generate £24 per household, but the average in Durham will be £16. Some 55% of properties in Durham are in band A, and only 9% are in band D. We have fewer than 200 band H properties, which the PCC told me raised the great sum of £68,000 last year. That puts authorities such as Durham’s at a disadvantage.

The move away from national funding to an increased reliance on the precept, putting the onus on local tax payers, is not only unfair, but will not raise the same amount of money. Whereas Surrey will benefit from a large increase, deprived communities such as Durham will not be able to raise the same amount. Chief Constable Mike Barton and Police and Crime Commissioner Ron Hogg have raised the matter with the Policing Minister, but we have seen no movement, and it needs to be addressed, particularly if this movement away from national funding for our police forces happens next year as well. As we will see in the following debate on local government funding, under this Government the trend has been to move money away from the most deprived communities to some of the most affluent areas.

We are being asked to vote for an increase in taxation, and I hope that every Conservative Member who votes for the motion will tell their local electorate that. It is not down to the PCCs to make the decision, because they frankly have no choice but to increase the precept. The Home Secretary used the word “flexibility”, but that is complete nonsense, because if PCCs do not raise the precept, they will, in most cases, have to make even deeper cuts, leading to parts of certain areas not being policed at all, which is unacceptable.

As I said, we are being asked to vote for a tax this afternoon, so I will not be supporting the motion. It is unfair regarding how core funding is being distributed under the same formula. If that continues, forces such as Durham, which is high-performing, will be hampered in their ability to deliver such performance, because of the reliance on the council tax precept. The Minister must address that if it is how we are to fund policing in this country. The consensus over many years has been that policing is a national responsibility, and that needs to continue, not be eroded, although that is what the motion will do.

Stop and Search

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Lady raises an extremely important point, and I thank her for mentioning body-worn cameras, which are a game changer in transparently managing the context of a stop and search. We are now on track for 80,000-odd of these body-worn cameras to be deployed across the country, which underpins our confidence in encouraging the police to do more stop and search in a legal, targeted way.

The hon. Lady talks about trust, and it is incumbent on the police, and on the police and crime commissioners, to be highly proactive in engaging with communities, particularly after a section 60 notice, in explaining the reasons for the section 60 notice and its consequences. People need to understand the motivation for a section 60 notice or for the deployment of stop and search, and they need to see how that connects with the results. People want to see action against violent crime, but they need the evidence that stop and search is contributing.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Most knife crime in provincial towns is predicated on organised crime gangs running drugs from city areas by involving young people and making them carry knives. What more can my right hon. Friend do about the organised crime gangs that are running drugs along county lines? What is he doing to try to steer young people away from getting involved in this activity and potentially committing these offences?

[Mr Hurd]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point, because county lines are rapidly emerging as a scourge of many market towns and areas that have absolutely no history of this crime. It is deeply unsettling for people so, through him, I reassure the public that the Government take it extremely seriously. There is more money going in to support the police in better co-ordinating their efforts, because crime that crosses borders is a challenge.

There is also considerable effort going in to try to target, identify, steer and protect vulnerable people, particularly vulnerable young people, from getting caught up in this activity. A combination of robust policing and really good prevention and early intervention work will hopefully protect these youngsters and stop this crime.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

My constituents have suffered significantly from illegal Traveller encamp- ments for several years, leading to a significant loss of local amenity and significant cost to council tax payers. I am glad that my right hon. Friend is working with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on that matter, but enforcement is key, so will he reassure me that whatever powers are put in place are backed up with decent, proper enforcement?

[Sajid Javid]

It is worth reminding the House that there is a joint consultation across the Government between the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office and that it will lead to better powers, whatever the results.

Immigration: DNA Tests

Marcus Jones Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

It is worth our reminding ourselves that the Gurkhas have been an integral part of our British armed forces for more than 200 years. We owe them—the Gurkhas who are in Britain and the Gurkhas who are not, and their predecessors—immense gratitude for everything that they have done to help our country. That is precisely why a scheme was already in place, before the DNA issue arose, to help Gurkhas to settle in the UK if they chose to do so. We have discovered through the review that was carried out that when the scheme was expanded to allow even more Gurkhas—and the adult dependent children of Gurkhas who were already here—to settle, some were improperly asked to provide DNA, and, indeed, told that they must do so. In the cases of which I am currently aware in which that was done and visas were refused, we have corrected the position and the visas have been issued, but at this point I cannot tell the House that those are the only cases, because there is a further review to be conducted.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s determination to improve the immigration system. The use of DNA evidence is an important tool, but it is clearly not mandatory under the law. Will my right hon. Friend reassure the significant number of Gurkha veterans and their families who reside in my constituency that he will continue to ensure that all outstanding cases, and those not yet identified, are dealt with expeditiously and in a way that is sympathetic to the people involved, and that those who have been affected will be compensated?

[Sajid Javid]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend some assurances on just that issue. The cases at which we are currently looking, particularly those involving Gurkhas, will be dealt with expeditiously, as he has requested, and there will be no mandatory requirement for DNA evidence. Should people wish to provide it, that is entirely up to them, and of course it will be considered. As I said in my statement, we are looking at ways of reimbursing those who may have had to spend money on DNA tests.

Serious Violence Strategy

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). I listened intently to her discussing the challenges that they have had in Scotland and the progress that has been made. As she rightly identified, that does not mean that the problem has been completely resolved. There is clearly always more to do.

I welcome the serious violence strategy, which Ministers have put forward in response to a problem that has been bubbling under the surface in this country for some decades and is again manifesting itself with tragic consequences. Tragically, there have been 40 deaths here in London in just the last few months.

Ministers are right to identify four themes in the strategy, but I want to dwell on the misuse of drugs and the illegal drug industry, which has become embedded over the decades, not just in London and the big cities, but in towns across the country. I represent Nuneaton. It is just about the largest town in Warwickshire and is extremely well connected in the middle of the country, just up the road from Coventry and Leicester and not too far from Birmingham. It is on the edge of Warwickshire, where it meets Leicestershire, but is also close to the west midlands in terms of policing.

There is a significant issue with cross-border crime that will not have passed the Minister by. It is not uncommon in my constituency for a tenant, particularly in social accommodation, to be befriended by an individual who then suddenly moves into the property—it is known as “cuckooing”—and very soon there is a satellite drug-dealing den in that property. They then befriend others in the community with inducements—cash and other things—who end up hooked on drugs and beholden to their suppliers. This is a critical issue to some other crimes that my constituents are concerned about.

My constituency has recently seen a spike in burglaries because of the illegal drugs industry and the use of illicit drugs. That extends to further organised crime and the taking of car keys in burglaries—the aggravated burglary where people are challenged in their own homes for their car keys—and all because some of my constituents over the last few years, although not wealthy, have started to do reasonably well. They have worked hard and now have nice cars and nice things, and they feel threatened by people hooked in locally who end up working for highly organised criminal gangs who want to take that new Jaguar or Ranger Rover and ship it abroad for a fraction of its value—still a significant amount of money.

Tied into this is the challenge presented by the tragic loss of life. I mentioned the 40 people killed in London recently. A few months ago we had an altercation in my constituency between two groups where a man lost his life. He had several children, who have now been left bereft as a consequence. Other people who have nothing to do with these challenges can also get mixed up in tragic situations. I will cite the case of a 20-year-old man in my constituency, Morgan Hehir. In 2015, he was on a night out with friends. They were walking between one pub and another and decided to take a shortcut across a park. They were followed by three men who, regrettably, set upon Morgan and his friends. Morgan was tragically stabbed with a steak knife, and died at the scene. It is very regrettable that some of these people know no boundaries. In this instance, the men even went to the extent of stealing Morgan’s phone and his wallet while he lay on the ground, either dying or having already died. That just goes to show the lengths to which some of these people will go, and how low some of them will stoop. As Members can imagine, Morgan’s parents have been devastated, his friends have been devastated, and the community has been left devastated.

The issues that we have talked about involving county lines feed into other massive social challenges that we face in our communities. For some months I have been working on a steering group with an organisation called P3, which was commissioned by Warwickshire County Council to support rough sleepers as an outreach organisation. It has become increasingly obvious to the steering group that the majority of the small but significant group of rough sleepers in my constituency are in that position because they have lost tenancies, generally in the social sector.

A frequent scenario is that people move in with someone who has a social tenancy—not always of that person’s own volition, because vulnerable people often feel threatened and do not feel able to throw out others who come to stay with them—and those people, often in a flat, end up making life hell for the other tenants in the block. At that point, the tenants who are having to live with the antisocial behaviour are likely to contact the local authority or housing association, and the holder of the tenancy often loses it as a result. It is apparent to me that many people have held two or three tenancies from a local authority or other social housing provider and have lost them because of the actions of others, which is clearly leading to a wider social problem.

So far we have all talked about things that are depressing, but I now want to talk about something that I find quite uplifting within the difficult situation that we face. One of the biggest problems is putting across to young people, in an educational way, that dabbling in drugs, getting hooked on drugs and hooking up with people who are involved with drugs is bad news, and they should avoid it at all costs. I have recently been heartened by the work of an organisation in Warwickshire called Street Aware, which was started by Councillor Richard Smith, and whose programme director is a lady called Donna Williamson. The organisation works with and trains young people in the issues surrounding drugs and the problems caused by them.

Those young people—they are unpaid, but they want to make a difference in their communities, and I pay tribute to them—then go out to schools and speak to school assemblies. They are speaking to their peers, so it not like one of us going and speaking to young people in a school where we are seen as just people in authority: what do we know? They speak to their peers on the same level, and make very clear to them the difficulties that they will get themselves into if they become involved in drugs. I commend Street Aware, Councillor Richard Smith, Donna Williamson, and those young people who are doing such a good job for our communities. I was recently delighted to attend a National Crimebeat Awards ceremony at which Street Aware scooped second prize for its work for local communities in Warwickshire.

We need more education: we need more education about drugs, and we need to support organisations such as Street Aware. We also need to be doing the same in respect of knives. As the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West said, one of the key planks of the success we have seen, particularly in Glasgow, has been making people aware of the problems that will be caused if they carry knives and use them. Quite often these young people will not want to use a knife, but if they are being threatened and told by somebody who they are running drugs for that they must carry a knife, they will feel compelled to do so, and if they get into a situation where they are challenged and they panic, they might well use that knife without thinking, only to realise afterwards that the consequences for the person they have attacked and for themselves are massive. Using a knife is likely to blight their life as well as that of the person it has been used against.

We must also do more to help young people to engage with society. There are people who engage very well, such as those who play football, go to athletics clubs or attend the Scouts, but there are others who do not get involved in any community activity at all, and we need to look more carefully at how we can get them engaged.

I also welcome the measures in the strategy to do with the police. I welcome the extra support my police in Warwickshire have received recently, and I am glad to say that my police and crime commissioner, Philip Seccombe, is employing an additional 50 police officers in Warwickshire. That might seem a small number to Members who represent city communities, but Warwickshire Police is the second smallest police force in the country and 50 officers represent an extremely important resource. We should also look not just at how many police officers we have got, but how we use them. That is important because many of the offences we are talking about are cross-border crimes; they do not recognise administrative barriers. We must ensure, therefore, that our police forces—whether West Midlands, Warwickshire, West Mercia or Leicestershire—are all working together, sharing intelligence and working with the local authorities in their areas, and that in turn the local authorities and other services are passing intelligence between each other.

[Sarah Jones]

I serve on the Select Committee on Home Affairs and we went to see the National Crime Agency to talk about county lines. The NCA made the point that these crimes are not just cross-border within this country, but are cross-border across Europe and the world. One of the worries about Brexit that the NCA expressed was that at the moment we can arrest people, follow people and collaborate with other countries, and if we do not get that sorted when we leave the EU, we will be in big trouble.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Lady is right from the point of view that the world has in recent decades become a very small place, and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) eloquently pointed out—as did my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Economic Crime—there are places from which people can send things through the post right to somebody else’s door; they no longer need a long distribution chain with items changing hands. The Prime Minister has been clear about this country and its exit from the EU and about wanting to maintain that information-sharing, working with other countries in the EU and beyond. Although we are leaving the EU, we are still very much part of Europe and we want to continue to work with our European partners to ensure that we support and assist each other in reducing the amount of crime.

[Mr John Hayes]

In the absence of the Security Minister, and speaking as the ex-Security Minister, I can tell my hon. Friend that that co-operation is very much part and parcel of how this Government and all Governments operate. Much of it is international, and it is not limited by the European Union. The Five Eyes community is an example of such co-operation. The chances of that co-operation stopping are very slim indeed, because of the mutual interests that lie at its heart.

[Mr Jones]

I understand what my right hon. Friend says. He has considerable knowledge in this area of policy, and he is absolutely right to say that the will is there to ensure that, on leaving the EU, this country will continue to be a partner of other countries within the EU in tackling the challenges that we all want to deal with.

I welcome the early intervention youth fund that the Government have announced. Our police and crime commissioners, being embedded in their communities across the country, are ideally placed to use that funding to work with local authorities and other partners, whether in the not-for-profit sector or the private sector, to deliver programmes to engage young people and pull them away from gang culture and from communities where they might be vulnerable. I certainly welcome that.

I also welcome the strategy that has been put forward today. This debate has given me the opportunity to put on record a number of my concerns about keeping my constituents safe, and I hope that, through today’s debate, through the work that the Government will do on the strategy, and through the additional measures that the Home Office is taking, particularly in its work with the Treasury, we will be able to tackle some of the underlying issues that have been bubbling under the surface. As I have said, we really must get under the surface to tackle them.

Windrush

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I am conscious that a number of hon. Members want to contribute to the debate, and therefore I am anxious to make progress.

So given that the Prime Minister knew so much about the target regime, we have to wonder, when she heard the various denials from the former Home Secretary, why did she not think to correct the record, or at least advise the then Home Secretary accurately to correct the record. Why did she not do that?

The Prime Minister’s record and her responsibility are clear. We have had go-home vans; the “deport first, appeal later” policy; targets for removals and for unsuccessful immigration appeals; protections against—

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

A number of hon. Members want to contribute to this important debate, and I am anxious to make progress.

Ministers now express their concern about the Windrush generation, saying that they came here, were invited and have contributed to this country’s prosperity. I might add that the Windrush generation enriched us in many other ways too, socially and culturally. That is what migrants do. Overwhelmingly, they come to build a better life for themselves and their family—wherever they are from, wherever they are going—and in building a better life for themselves and their family, they contribute to the prosperity of all. That is why it is time that we had a more positive narrative on migration.

As we heard earlier, Government Members and Ministers would far prefer to talk about illegal immigration than the plight of the Windrush generation. As I said earlier, no one on the Opposition Benches supports illegal migration. We are all in favour of the removal of people who are here illegally. We could start with the number of prisoners who judges have directed should be removed at end of sentence, but many are not removed because of an organisational failure by the Home Office in getting the paperwork correct.

For our part, the Labour party has pledged to recruit 500 extra border guards to deal with illegal immigration, people and drug trafficking, and smuggling. We do not want to support illegal immigrants; we want to prevent people who do not have the right to be here from entering the country. This Government and their immediate predecessors cut the border guards, so it is distressing to hear them talk about illegal immigration, rather than focusing on what is happening to the Windrush generation.

The Windrush generation are here legally, yet they continue to be talked about by some Government Members as if they were here illegally. The Government were warned that negative outcomes for Commonwealth citizens who had been here for decades would be a consequence of their hostile environment policy. Many people in the House warned them, including myself, as well as many others outside the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I say to my right hon. Friend that I can confirm that, and I will do so. I will come on to cover in more detail the point he has made.

I want to address directly any concerns that people might still have about coming forward. As I told the House on Monday, any information provided to the taskforce will be used for no other immigration purpose than that of helping people to confirm their status. Any information provided will not be passed to immigration enforcement.

Let me remind the House of some of the other important changes this Government have introduced in the light of the Windrush situation. A Commonwealth citizen who settled in the UK before 1973 will now be entitled to apply for British citizenship—the legal status that they deserve—free of charge. We have made it clear that we will make the process they need to go through to get citizenship as simple as possible. While it is right that we are swiftly progressing urgent cases, all of this needs a proper legal underpinning, as hon. Members have suggested. That is why I will bring forward the necessary legislation to cover fee exemptions, fee reductions and changes to the citizenship process as soon as possible. I also recognise that, in some cases, people have suffered severe financial loss, and I want to put that right. That is why we are setting up a new compensation scheme. It will be overseen by an independent person, and we will consult on its scope, because it is important that we get the detail of this scheme right from the moment it begins.

It is essential in this debate that we do not lose sight of the distinction between legal and illegal migration. Successive Governments, including the previous Labour Government, have put in place what I would call a “compliant environment”—measures to tackle illegal migration—and this is a perfectly sensible approach to take. I will give some examples. The first NHS treatment charges for overseas visitors and illegal migrants were introduced in 1982, as were checks by employers on someone’s right to work in 1997, measures on access to benefits in 1999 and civil penalties for employing illegal migrants in 2008. More recent measures in the Immigration Acts 2014 and 2016, which were debated in this House at length, introduced checks by landlords before property is rented out and checks by banks on account holders.

As I made clear in this House on my first day in this role and as I have just said, I do not believe that the term “hostile environment” is in tune with our values as a country. This is about having a compliant environment. Measures over many years to tackle illegal immigration are of course a good thing, and we stand by those measures. They are designed to ensure that work, benefits and services in the UK go only to those who have the right to access them, and that is what the public rightly expect the Government to do. We are protecting our public services, and taking action against rogue employers, landlords and organised crime groups who exploit vulnerable migrants and damage our communities. We carefully balance the need to tackle illegal immigration with the need to protect those who are here lawfully from unintended consequences.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

My right hon. Friend is making a very good speech, and I am glad that he has very clearly set out how we are going to put right this wrong and support those in the Windrush generation who are clearly British citizens and are here legally. Does he not agree that we must be very careful about the language we use in the House, because some of the language I have heard used by Opposition Members today is scaremongering and will lead to people affected by this scandal not coming forward to get the support they need and deserve?

Kerslake Arena Attack Review

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. As for this last point, we always review such things. We have a new Contest process, which involves examining where we can learn lessons all the way through, and there are many lessons to be learned from all the tragic attacks we had last year. He is absolutely right about Vodafone, and I am determined to ensure that we find out what went wrong. On the plus side, it has not happened before or after, but that is not an excuse and we must ensure that we receive guarantees, and exercising can help with that.

I want to highlight one important point. I have read some of the media over the past few days, and one would not be blamed for thinking that no one was there on the scene, but that was not the case. Within one minute of the explosion, which was targeted at women and children, British Transport police, police community support officers and paramedics were there. Within 12 minutes, ambulances were on the scene. It is regretful that the fire service was not there, but that was not key to whether people were getting treatment. The other blue-light emergency services did a fantastic job. They set up a casualty station, and they improvised. I know that the Labour party fully understands that and supports that view, and it is something that we should reflect on when the media picks on the worst, not the best, of the event.

We will continue to keep things under review, and I have always said to the shadow Minister that if he would like to visit some of the response units to see how things are being worked through, I would be delighted to host him—or any other Member—to ensure that the complexity of the situation is understood.

The biggest point in relation to the report and all terrorist actions is that we often start by not knowing what the situation is. All Members will remember the day of the Westminster Bridge attack: we were locked in our offices and shut off from one another because we did not know whether it involved firearms or a bomb or whether another person was in the House or not. That is the biggest challenge that our blue-light services face—“Is it a single explosion?” If lots of protocols had been broken in Manchester and there had been a second device—there are lots of examples of where second devices or attacks have been employed—I would hate to have been standing here for another reason, saying that we exposed our emergency services to too much danger because we rushed in or did not do something. It is a difficult balance to make, but I think the right calls were made on the night. Yes, there were some failures, but my constituents and those of the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) can be confident that help was there and that the blue-light emergency services did a fantastic and brave job.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

This was a barbaric act of terrorism, and I welcome my right hon. Friend’s measured tone in response to the report. In an ideal world, we would always work to prevent such incidents from happening in the first place, so what more are the Government willing to do to put additional resources into counter-terrorism to ensure that we do not see these awful events on our streets?

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for pointing out that I am the Home Secretary. We have seen a higher number of cases of sexual violence being reported, and it is good that people are willing to come forward to report such cases. Some of these are historical cases, and there has been an upturn in the number of people coming forward, particularly as a result of the revelations relating to Jimmy Savile and other such cases. As I said earlier, the number of successful prosecutions by the CPS for rape and sexual violence has hit an all-time high, so I suggest that the right hon. Lady goes away and looks again at her figures.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

T4. With crime down by more than 10% since 2010, and by 11% in Warwickshire, will my right hon. Friend join me in commending the hard-working officers of the Warwickshire police force for their contribution to that? Does he agree that the Opposition were wrong to suggest that crime would rise as we started to deal with the legacy of deficit and debt that Labour left behind?

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I would add to his point about the Warwickshire force the fact that it and its neighbour, the West Mercia force, have been among the most successfully radical in collaborating across force boundaries. One reason that they are providing such good services to the people of Warwickshire is that they have managed to merge back-office functions and specialist functions, meaning that they can spend more time cutting and preventing crime, which is what my hon. Friend’s constituents want.