Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Marion Fellows and Alex Chalk

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady raises an important point by referring to those three cases. What concerns me is that one defendant’s actions could be copied by others, who take the view that that is somehow a way of getting away from the consequences of their actions. She makes it a political point—we are in the House of Commons, so I totally understand that—but I could equally make the point that the legislation was not changed pre-2010 either. We have seen the anguish caused by these actions, so let me make the point that I want to know that when an offender is sitting in a cell, trying to get to sleep when the rest of the world is getting to sleep, the judge’s words of condemnation are ringing in their ears. There are victims who find it hard to ever recover, so why should that defendant ever be able to sleep soundly in their bed?

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

17. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential impact of the Illegal Migration Bill on access to justice for asylum seekers.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

The Illegal Migration Bill will break the business model of people-smuggling gangs, deter migrants from making dangerous channel crossings and restore fairness to our asylum system. The Bill will provide a robust but fair legal framework to remove illegal migrants swiftly while ensuring that proper opportunity to appeal remains. I am working closely and regularly with Cabinet colleagues on the implementation of the Bill.

[Marion Fellows]

I thank the Minister for his answer. The Illegal Migration Bill would prevent UK courts from granting an interim remedy to delay the removal of an individual while their judicial review claim is heard. Is that not a fundamental attack on the rights of an individual to access the courts? Does he really believe that an asylum seeker will be able to participate effectively in a judicial review if they are already in Rwanda?

[Alex Chalk]

This is a fair country and we will always take what proper steps we should to ensure that individuals’ rights are upheld. I respectfully say this: as well as considering those migrants who come across the channel, the hon. Lady needs to think about those migrants on the north coast of France who are thinking about whether to put their lives into the hands of people traffickers. We need to send a clear message that they should not do so. I also say respectfully that she should think about the rights of the British people who are having to fund a great deal of this. We will be fair, but we will also be firm and make no apology for either.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Marion Fellows and Alex Chalk

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

What recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on proposals to update the Human Rights Act 1998.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

We regularly engage with the Scottish Government, as well as the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, on a range of justice-related matters, including human rights. The Government committed to looking at the broader aspects of our constitution, including updating the Human Rights Act. I can assure the hon. Members that, once the work on the Human Rights Act review commences, the implications for the devolved Administrations will be closely monitored.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. There is a manifesto commitment to look at updating the Human Rights Act, which is now—what?—20 years old or so, but we have yet to set the terms of reference. Of course it is the case that, as we go forward in that process, the implications for the distinguished and distinct, separate legal jurisdiction of Scotland must be taken into account, and that is exactly what we will ensure takes place.

[Marion Fellows [V]]

Can the Minister confirm what criteria will be used to appoint members to this independent review? Will it include members with expertise in the human rights regime in Scotland, and will civic society organisations from Scotland be able to submit evidence and participate in the review?

Tuition Fees

Debate between Marion Fellows and Alex Chalk

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a fundamental Scottish National party principle that access to education should be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay. SNP MPs have a strong and principled record of opposing tuition fee increases in England and Wales and, if we are able to, we will reject any Bill that would increase the financial burden on students.

In 1997, I personally lobbied my predecessor in this place on the introduction of student fees. I had never met him before, but I think he still remembers that meeting, because I was incensed at the idea that students should have to pay fees. I found their introduction by a Labour Government particularly objectionable, especially as so many of them had gone to university themselves; they then pulled up the ladder behind them. Neither I nor the SNP have changed our view that access to education must be based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay.

The SNP’s commitment to free tuition is firm and unequivocal. In 2007, the SNP Scottish Government abolished tuition fees. The Scottish Government’s free tuition policy benefits 120,000 undergraduate students in Scotland every year, saving them from accruing debts of up to £27,000, unlike their peers in other parts of the UK. The SNP will always guarantee that access to education is based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay.

Since we came to office in Scotland, the number of Scottish-domiciled full-time first-degree entrants has risen by 12%, but this is also about our values and the kind of Scotland we want to live in. Scotland as whole values free access to higher education, as does the SNP. Unlike the Tories in Scotland, we have no intention of billing our young people for their education, either up front or after they have graduated.

In 2015, the president of the National Union of Students Scotland, Vonnie Sandlan, said:

“The idea that abolishing free education—a clear recognition of the public and social good provided by higher education—would improve fair access seems bizarre.”

It is almost as bizarre as the recent comments by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on “The Andrew Marr Show”, when he said that only graduates benefit from their studies. As a Scot, has he not heard of the commonweal? Everyone benefits. Society benefits from a higher tax take, and from its teachers, its doctors, even its lawyers, and sometimes, perhaps, its MPs.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Has the hon. Lady read the report by the Sutton Trust, the social mobility charity, which was absolutely damning about social mobility in Scotland as a specific result of the SNP’s policy of capping places? Does she not deprecate the fact that social mobility in Scotland is going into reverse?

[Marion Fellows]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I totally disagree with him. I will come on to that point further on in my speech. The fact is that Scottish education is different; the way into it and how to progress in it are completely untypical.