Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

2nd reading
Tuesday 5th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I will take one more intervention and then I will make some progress.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I will be honest, Mr Deputy Speaker: I am not very technically minded. I like the idea of a manual car with five or six gears and reverse. In the rural community that I live in, I am very happy with that. I have a bit of hesitation about automated vehicles. Thinking about young drivers—this is really important, because the Secretary of State mentioned blurred lines—we have to make sure that everyone who learns to drive has full capacity to drive any vehicle, and does not think they can get into an automated vehicle and just sit there and do nothing. It is really important that everyone is subject to the same rules. Can he confirm for anyone who thinks that in future they will be able just to sit in the back of the car that that is not the case, and that they will have to learn to drive in the way that we all have over the years?

[Mr Harper]

I will come to that in a second—it will become clear in the next section of my speech—but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Bill is about giving people choices. If people want, as many will, to carry on driving their existing vehicles in the traditional way, that is absolutely fine and no one is going to try to stop them. To be very clear, the hon. Gentleman can carry on driving for as long as he wants to and is safe to, and no one is going to try to stop him. Certainly, I am not going to try—I wouldn’t dare.

On the legal concerns—this will address the point about the driving test, too—the Bill redefines our legal relationship with road transport. As soon as someone turns on a self-driving feature, legal responsibility for how the car drives will transfer to an authorised self-driving entity, or ASDE—not a very catchy acronym, admittedly, but that is what they are called. That could be a manufacturer or a software developer but, crucially, it will not be the human driver, who will assume a new status. As a user in charge, they will still need to ensure that the car is roadworthy, and they will need to reassume control if necessary. That answers the hon. Gentleman’s question: someone will still need to be in possession of a full driving licence and able to reassume control of the vehicle if required, but they will be protected by law from any offences while the car is driving itself.

Some journeys, either in private cars or on self-driving transport, will be fully automated, and a human will never need to take control; they will be, in essence, a passenger. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) mentioned the example of Waymo cars in the US. Those are operated as taxis, with no driver present, and the human is never expected to take control; it is classed as a “no user in charge” journey. In those circumstances, someone would not need a driving licence, because they would never be expected to drive the car, in the same way we are not expected to drive a taxi or private hire vehicle. Those legal concepts will have a seismic impact.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for that positive response. It is clear that the Government are taking the right steps to broadly address the issue, but what is being done to ensure that individual seafaring companies with responsibility for crews have access to up-to-date advice? I would go so far as to suggest protective measures to enable them to keep their routes open—perhaps protective staff on boats, or helicopters or planes overhead.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is right to put the safety of ships and seafarers at the centre of the issue, as we and the IMO do. We work very closely with the sector to ensure that it has the best possible information, both at policy level and in the region. We are taking further steps to ensure that the best advice is available on the ground, so that individual captains as well as their companies can make the best decisions commercially and, importantly, for the safety of their crews.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

No. What I find surprising is that the London Mayor spends an awful lot of time pretending that he does not have any money, so he puts up taxes on hard-working motorists in outer London, and then just before an election, he finds a secret war chest that enables him to do popular things. Everyone knows that if he were to win, he would put up taxes again on the poorest motorists as sure as night follows day, which is why they should vote for Susan Hall.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank Ministers for all their answers. Regarding accessibility for disabled passengers, being ever mindful that we are in an age of equality and that disabled people deserve the same opportunities as everyone else, has consideration been given to ensuring that taxi firms have an obligation to provide vehicles for disabled people in every shift pattern?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Thursday 26th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I hope that the hon. Lady will have noted the announcement that we made earlier this year about PumpWatch, as well as the work that the Government have done to ensure that the Competition and Markets Authority looks carefully at the way in which the fuel market operates, to ensure that it does so in the interest of consumers, as we all want.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Some 50-plus years ago, when I first took my driving test, there was one other thing we had to do: be able to afford a car. I can remember pinning all my £165 to buy a wee Mini car, but that was 50-plus years ago. Today, one of the issues for people who want to drive and be on the roads is that they just cannot get a practical driving test. What has been done to address that so that young people who have a car and insurance can take a test and get on the road?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. The wait times for theory driving tests are within target. He is absolutely right to draw the House’s attention to the fact that there is currently a longer waiting time for practical driving tests. That is why both I and the roads Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), have tasked the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which has a plan to get back within target in the next few months, exactly to help those constituents of the hon. Gentleman who are keen to get their practical test and get on the road, so that they can take advantage of the freedom that being able to drive offers.

Rail Services

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

TPE’s contract expires on 28 May, not 23 May. I recognise what the hon. Lady says about the excellent skills that are available in York. On LNER, that franchise often delivered very good performance. The reasons why it ended up being brough under the control of the OLR were to do with financial performance —the operational performance was very good. On TPE, we are carefully considering the performance of the existing company and structure, and we will make a judgment about that. I have said that no option is off the table if TPE does not deliver improved services. I listened carefully to what she said, and I will bear it in mind when we make a decision.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State very much for his statement. For able-bodied people like us, travel can be a problem, but it is even more of a problem for disabled people. Will he outline whether improvements to disabled access will be extended to rural locations, which, although small in nature, are vital and pivotal to connectivity, especially for disabled people, who wish to be—and must be—fully considered and included in this statement and, indeed, in the delivery of services?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman will know that, in a previous life, I served as Minister for Disabled People, so I take accessible transport very seriously. That is why one thing that I did when I became Secretary of State was to make all my Ministers clear that, in all their decisions, they had to think about how disabled people could have access to all modes of transport. He will know about the services that we have to improve station accessibility. I will make sure that, as we think about rural services, the Rail Minister thinks about access for all, because that is incredibly important, as the hon. Gentleman says.

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Clearly, given what happened earlier this year, we do not think the existing position is satisfactory. That is why we are bringing forward the Bill. If my hon. Friend wants to set out his argument in more detail during the debate, we will obviously listen with great care, but we think legislation is necessary. The Bill is a major step forward and it will deliver on point one of the nine-point plan, changing the law so that seafarers with close ties to the UK working on frequent services to UK ports are paid at least an equivalent to the UK national minimum wage while they are in our waters.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The concern I have, and I believe other Members in the Chamber have, is that I understand the chief executive officer of P&O said that the average hourly wage for his new crewing model would be £5.50 per hour, yet the minimum wage is much more than that even for under-18s. Can the Secretary of State provide clarification? I want the Bill to be firm, hard and strong—I think we all do—so will he address that issue?

[Mr Harper]

The legislation will ensure that seafarers with close ties to the UK who are working on frequent services to UK ports have to be paid at least an equivalent to the UK national minimum wage while they are in our waters. As the hon. Gentleman points out, for those aged 23 and over, the current rate is £9.50 an hour. From April 2023, it will be £10.42 an hour. That is clearly significantly higher than the amount the hon. Gentleman just set out. That is the point of the Bill: to discourage the sort of behaviour we saw from P&O earlier this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

We judge that the risk of operators moving to or operating out of a different port is relatively small. The routes on which they operate are the profitable ones, so ceasing to operate on them would not make business sense. We think that denying access to a port is a proportionate response to the problem, so we have settled on that measure as the appropriate solution.

We will draw up regulations and guidance setting out further details of how the legislation will work. They will be subject to consultation to ensure that our measures are practical and effective and that people cannot avoid them. Feedback from the industry has been crucial throughout the process. Ferry operators told us that inclusions or exclusions based on type of service would create market distortion and ambiguity, so the only specific exclusion in the Bill is for

“a service that is for the purpose of leisure or recreation, or…a service provided by a fishing vessel.”

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Secretary of State for his graciousness in giving way. Will resources be made available for the extra work that harbour authorities and marine services will have to carry out? If they are already rushed and under pressure, surely it makes sense to employ more people and make more resources available.

[Mr Harper]

We do not think that the responsibility on harbour authorities will be particularly onerous. Their job will be to receive declarations, not to investigate or do compliance work; those responsibilities will fall to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. As with all our agencies, it will be a question of setting priorities. As the hon. Gentleman can see from the fact that we are introducing primary legislation on the matter, improving services for seafarers is indeed one of our priorities.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My right hon. Friend puts it very well. There are serious risks here, which is why we need to address the perfectly reasonable concerns that many people have in Northern Ireland.

It would be helpful if the Minister could indicate when the Government will set out their thinking—obviously, there is not long to go before the recess—and whether that will be announced in such a way as to give us the chance to question Ministers. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), who leads the Democratic Unionist party, set out its checklist for how it is going to test any proposals that the Governments bring forward. It would be helpful to know—I do not expect the Minister and the United Kingdom Government to completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman—

[Jim Shannon]

Why not?

[Mr Harper]

Well, they may. My request was going to be for the Minister to set out which of the tests that the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley set out the Government agree with and which they perhaps do not. Listening to his objectives, I do not think that that list can have come as an enormous surprise, so it would be helpful to get a bit of a steer about the extent to which there is some commonality.

My final point is that, very clearly, as several of my hon. and right hon. Friends have said, there was envisaged in the protocol and the political declaration the idea that the protocol was not a permanent solution but a temporary solution. Certainly, both sides—the British Government and the EU—said that they would take seriously alternative arrangements that could be put in place to enable businesses in Northern Ireland to have unfettered access to the Great Britain market, but just as importantly, to enable businesses in Great Britain to trade freely with Northern Ireland, for the benefit of both Northern Ireland businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland.

Even if one accepts—and I am not sure that I do—that those arrangements could not have been put in place several years ago when we left the European Union, saying that they can never be put in place and that, as technology and business procedures develop, we cannot develop our arrangements, seems unreasonable. Both the EU and the British Government should, working together, be able to take those forward. I look forward very much to listening, in the not-too-distant future, to the Minister’s response to what has been an excellent debate on both sides of the House.

Obesity Strategy 2020

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am grateful to be able to speak on this matter. It has been an ongoing issue for the United Kingdom and I appreciate that it is one of our greatest health challenges that affects people of all ages. I want to put on record my thanks to the Minister. I have been involved in many debates where she has responded on the issue of diabetes, which I think she referred to in her introduction. I believe that she is totally committed to bringing together a strategy that we can all endorse and will hopefully bring about a healthier and leaner United Kingdom. I also welcome the commitment to the alcohol strategy.

I am a type 2 diabetic and I have had diabetes for approximately 14 years. I am proud to say that since being diagnosed I have lost almost four stone on what I weighed back in 2008 and 2009. I am not proud of the circumstances that got to me to where I was. I did not even know what diabetes was, to be truthful. I was not even sure what the symptoms were until I met a diabetic maybe the year before. The choices that led me to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes were ill-judged. I never really gave thought to the health issues that can come along with the foods I was eating. Sweet-and-sour pork and two bottles of Coca-Cola six nights week are not a good thing for anyone, and they certainly were not good for me, as I found out for the worse.

I am now confident and well pleased with how I deal with the issue. It takes self-control. The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) referred to self-control, which is very important. Not everybody can do it, but if they can, it is good that they can. Along with the tablets that I take for the diabetes, it seems to be bringing results. There is no place in society for judgment when it comes to the topic of obesity, as the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said.

[Mr Harper]

I cannot remember whether I said—as I should have done, when I was talking about people being disciplined—that I accept that it is a simple thing in one sense to reduce one’s calorie intake and take more exercise, but it is not easy for people to do. I did not want to indicate, if I had left that impression, that I thought it was easy. Equally, while there is no alternative, ultimately, to people taking responsibility themselves, I accept that many people require help and support to do so. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity to put that on the record

[Jim Shannon]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for clarifying the matter. I knew that is what he meant, but I thank him.

The health survey for England refers to 1,000 people aged over 16, 277 of whom were obese and 31 were morbidly obese. In Northern Ireland, the figures are replicated; in fact, they are the same everywhere. Childhood obesity is a crucial issue on which much more needs to be done to make youths feel less self-conscious about the issue but at the same time able to do something about it. Obesity affects one in every five children in Northern Ireland. The figures there unfortunately show that there are outstanding problems to be addressed. Obesity exaggerates high blood pressure, diabetes and liver disease. Obesity is one of the three main causes of liver disease, in particular. Obesity also affects many other things, as the Minister said. It is very important to put that on record.

I have met constituents of mine over the years who had a medical condition that meant that they were not obese by choice but because of the circumstances of their own individual bodies. The people I am referring to had to go for bariatric surgery. I know some people who did that and I know it changed their lives. Perhaps the Minister could comment on how such procedures can be looked after within the NHS, because to do it privately costs over £10,000.

This is a serious health problem and it affects thousands of people. I want people to live their lives healthily and happily. I believe children should be taught that support is all around them and that their size is nothing to be ashamed of. There are ways to go about detecting obesity. However, I feel that one of the most important factors in tackling this issue is to reassure people that they will not be judged. Judgment often leads to resentment and failure, and there is no doubt that it is a sensitive issue for those who struggle with weight loss. I therefore urge the Minister to take that into consideration. I also urge others to be kind when it comes to such a topic. I believe that help and support is there for all those who are obese and seek help. I sincerely hope that in the coming years we can work together to bring forward a strategy that will encourage people and not do them down.

EU Referendum: Immigration and Disability Employment

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered immigration policy and the disability employment gap after the EU referendum.

Members who have looked at the title of this debate may not immediately understand what I am driving at. I raise the subject of immigration and disability employment not just because I have been both Immigration Minister and Minister for Disabled People, but because I think we have a very good opportunity, post-Brexit, to look at getting more disabled people into work. I am pleased to see the Minister for Immigration in his place; I am also pleased to see the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work here today, because that demonstrates that the Government are joined up on these matters and that Ministers in different Departments work closely together.

A number of issues came out of the referendum. First, the British people want us to have control of immigration, both from within and from without the European Union. I think that will mean ending the free movement of people and applying the same rules to those coming from inside the EU and to those coming from outside the EU, in one consistent immigration system. It flows from that—and from the fact that the Conservative party has twice committed, in our 2010 and 2015 manifestos, to reducing net migration—that we should use that extra control to reduce net migration to the United Kingdom. If we are to have a dynamic, fast-growing economy that continues to generate lots of jobs, as we have done consistently over the last six years—indeed, businesses have created more jobs in Britain, using the conditions created by the coalition Government and by this Conservative Government, than the whole of the rest of the European Union put together—we need to increase the ability for businesses to use the talents of those British citizens who are not yet in the labour market.

The referendum has also given the Government the opportunity to deliver another manifesto commitment, which is to halve the disability employment gap—the gap between the proportion of people who are disabled who are in work and the proportion of the working-age population as a whole. We can use Brexit as an opportunity to challenge businesses to use some imagination and effort to look harder at employing people with a disability, whether that is a mental health problem, a learning disability or a physical disability. Those are the messages that arise and that I will elaborate on a little further in my speech, before my hon. Friend the Minister responds—positively, I hope—on behalf of the Government.

Having caught the end of the previous debate, I want to lay my cards on the table. I come at this issue as someone who supported the remain campaign but, as I mentioned, I have also been Immigration Minister, so I understand the complexities and challenges facing the Minister as he grapples with the subject. The Prime Minister, who as a former Home Secretary knows how challenging this area is, has said that there is no single policy that can be introduced to control immigration; getting a handle on it requires detailed, relentless work over time. As soon as the Government close one loophole, people get around it. The world changes and the needs of the economy change. If we are to have an immigration system that delivers for the economy and the British people, that relentless, detailed work needs to continue.

When I was Immigration Minister, I found it very frustrating not to be able to control EU migration. We could control it a little—we could crack down on overt abuse—but it was largely outside the control of Ministers and of Parliament. That was very frustrating, and Brexit is an opportunity to get it right. It seemed to me in the referendum campaign that one of the important issues, although not the only one, that led to the vote to leave the European Union was that the British people were frustrated that free movement within the EU did not give their elected Government and their elected representatives the ability to control immigration and to choose who came to our country in the way they thought we should. I do not think that was the only issue, but it was clear from the general election campaign and from the referendum campaign that it is important and we need to address it.

As I said, the Conservative party made a clear commitment in both our last two manifestos to reduce net migration to sustainable levels, which is defined as reducing it from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. That ambition has been reconfirmed, post-referendum, by the Prime Minister. She has been realistic that it will take time to deliver—we are not likely to leave the European Union for another two years after article 50 has been triggered, and it will take time for the implementation of policies to take effect after that—but we can get on a path to delivering that target. That would be welcome, and I know the Minister would be keen to achieve it.

It is worth saying that this is not just about our manifesto commitment. The reason for reducing net migration is that, certainly at the lower end of the labour market, there is evidence that high levels of migration can have an impact on wage levels. That was one of the issues reflected in the British people’s decision to leave the European Union. Particularly in areas that have large numbers of new migrants, there can be significant pressures on public services, which we also heard about from the public: pressures on accessing doctors, other healthcare services, schools and housing. All those pressures would be alleviated if we controlled migration more effectively.

If no British citizens at all were out of work, clearly it would make sense to import workers from overseas to fill the skill gaps and the gaps in the labour market. However, although unemployment is very low—less than 5%, which is a success both of Government policy and of the work done over the years of the coalition Government, particularly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), to make the benefits system more flexible and to encourage people to get into work, with changes such as universal credit—a significant number of British people who are capable of working and would like to work have some sort of barrier or difficulty that makes it harder to get a job.

I do not particularly want to fire statistics at the Minister, but it is worth looking at the number of people who claim employment and support allowance and are in the work-related activity group, which means they have a condition that will allow them to work at some point in the future. There are nearly half a million people in that category, half of whom are people with mental health conditions, for example, who would be able to work if they were given the opportunity to do so and their employer made reasonable adjustments. There are more than 1.5 million people in the support group; again, with reasonable adjustments, some of those people would be able to enter the workplace. I remind the Minister that many of those people would like to work. They want the opportunity to work, but they do not currently get it.

There are also significant numbers of people with a learning disability who would be capable of working and would love the opportunity to work but do not currently get it. It is worth mentioning some information that Mencap has provided for this debate. It points out that there are 1.4 million people in the United Kingdom with a learning disability. Mencap exists to support those people and their families. It estimates that around eight in every 10 of those 1.4 million people with a learning disability could do work, with the right support, but also that only two in every 10 of them are currently in employment. That means that, according to Mencap staff, who are experts on such matters, six in every 10 people with a learning disability—840,000 people—could do some sort of work but are not currently given the opportunity.

Mencap says that the majority of people with a learning disability can work and want to work. The figures are stark: the national employment percentage is in the high 70s, but the overall disability employment rate is just below 50%. Mencap makes the point that there is a large pool of people who are capable of working and would like the opportunity to work, but who are not currently given the opportunity to do so.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I was very much in the out camp and was pleased that the referendum went the way it did. My constituents asked me whether they would continue to be protected by disabilities legislation, as they are while we are in the EU. Is it the right hon. Gentleman’s intention that that legislative protection would still be given outside the EU? I understand the Government committed to that, so I am keen to hear whether that is the case. If it is, the existing protection in legislation will continue.

[Mr Harper]

I welcome that intervention because, although I am sure that the Minister will respond to that point, it gives me the opportunity to remind the House that it was a Conservative Government who in 1995 brought in the first Disability Discrimination Act, which was taken through the Commons by Lord Hague of Richmond, who was then simply William Hague and a Minister in the Department that became the Department for Work and Pensions. That was trailblazing legislation in this country, informed by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which Lord Hague had studied carefully. He had the full support of the then Prime Minister, John Major, in taking it through the House.

That legislation is largely domestic and was introduced by a Conservative Government. When the last Labour Government introduced the Equality Act 2010, which consolidated a lot of legislation in one place, we supported that. I was the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman at the time, and I would not anticipate any change—certainly no diminution—in the legislative protection for disabled people when we leave the European Union. I am sure that the Minister will confirm that.

Some people might be thinking, “Well, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made that point at a timely moment. All this legislative protection is in place, so what difference will leaving the European Union make?” I received a briefing note from the Papworth Trust, which is another excellent organisation that helps disabled people to get into work. I suggest businesses need to put more effort and imagination into hiring people. The Papworth Trust says:

“A major barrier for our customers”

—the disabled people whom it helps—

“is that employers often seek ‘ready-made’ employees who are proficient in their role with minimum training, support or cost to the employer.”

The trust also highlights the fact that there are many good employers that go that extra mile.

My argument is that, post-Brexit, we can say to employers, “You’re not going to have the ability to hire people who are ready to drop straight into your company off the shelf. You are going to have to look harder at people who might require extra training or assistance. The Government should stand ready to help you, perhaps by dealing with the extra costs of hiring some of those disabled people, but you should look at them and give them the opportunity. They will repay you by being productive, valued and valuable employees.” The Government can challenge employers on their attitudes. As I said, there are already some very good employers. The Government’s Disability Confident scheme helps to share best practice and gives employers the confidence to hire more disabled people. It is a very good example.

I have several asks to make of the Minister. First, he should continue the work that the Government are already doing in the Department for Work and Pensions, which is working closely with the Home Office on this matter. As I highlighted at the start of the debate, the fact that Ministers from both Departments are present and listening to the debate is excellent. I have had conversations with both the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Home Secretary on this matter. They are both keen to make progress in this area.

Secondly, we need to identify the sectors of the economy in which we are currently very dependent on migration from the European Union. For both entry-level and skilled jobs, we should find out where people with a disability could provide a contribution to employers.

Thirdly, the Government need to work in partnership with employers, but also to utilise the third and charitable sectors. I have already mentioned several organisations, but Mind is a prominent mental health charity that encourages employers to employ people with a mental health problem. Scope and Mencap are both excellent organisations that continue to work in partnership with the Government and employers.

Mental Health and Unemployment

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman is right about that. That is why the access to psychological therapies work is already under way and, as I said, is being rolled out further. One of the issues is how well the pilots can be scaled, given that some pilots require skilled mental health professionals, of whom there are a limited number—by which I do not mean a small number, but finite capacity—looking at models which enable us to scale the pilots up more quickly. We want to make sure that we have a good evidence base for pilots that look promising.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referred to some very specific experiences in Northern Ireland. It is worth putting on the record—he knows this because we have had this conversation before—that quite a lot of welfare and health services are devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive. It is right for him to raise his constituency experience here in the House, but the delivery of those services is not under my control or that of my colleagues in the Department of Health. Those services are under the control of the Northern Ireland Executive. I will be meeting the Minister in due course as we are keen for our experiences to inform how the Northern Ireland Executive rolls out those services, and vice versa. If we can learn from each other, we are happy to do so.

[Jim Shannon]

We understand that that is the situation. In my contribution I referred to the Prince’s Trust and some of its good work with vulnerable young people, which the shadow Minister also referred to. Is there any intention to roll out such work on the UK mainland to give vulnerable young people the help that they need at the coalface of their lives?

[Mr Harper]

I do not have a specific answer that I can give the hon. Gentleman immediately, but I will take that point away and look at it further. I listened carefully when he was setting it out for the House and there were some positive aspects to that approach.

About a third of NHS mental health trusts in England are using individual placement and support. The Department of Health is grant funding the Centre for Mental Health to extend IPS further, and my Department and the Department of Health are working with the Centre for Mental Health to try IPS with schizophrenia. From his expression, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam appears to be familiar with that programme. One of the aims is to encourage at a local level my Department and Jobcentre Plus to work closely with the health service, and there are examples of such close working.

The fit for work service was referred to by several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, who said that the longer people were out of work, the less chance there was of return. The fit for work service, to which the shadow Minister also referred, which is obviously at a relatively early stage, is about helping employers and employees manage the sickness absence programme.

I was tempted to advertise another service that we offer earlier, but I resisted. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam opened his speech with the story of Anne-Marie, I thought that it was a good example of where she and her employer would have benefited from the mental health support service, which is part of Access to Work, which is clearly not as well known as it ought to be. As he said, it has a job retention rate of around 92%. It assesses an individual’s need to identify strategies that they can use to cope with their mental health problem, looks at a personalised support plan, either for returning to or remaining in work, and gives employers advice. That is important, particularly for small employers that do not have the capacity to have occupational health support in place.

As it happens, tomorrow I will be speaking at a disability confident mental health focus event, which is being supported by Mind, Remploy and the Business Disability Forum, and hosted by Royal Mail, specifically to raise awareness about the mental health support service. A significant number of employers are coming, and I have named several employers, including Royal Mail, who are committed to this.

Leadership has been referred to, and I attended an event with a KPMG senior partner—I hope it is in order to mention the company given that I used to work for it, although it was a long time ago—who has been open about his own mental health problem. It was heartening that he referred to the fact that the senior management of that organisation had created an environment in the business where, as a senior member of the management team, he felt comfortable with being open about his mental health problem. I know from talking to other members of staff that the fact that he has been able to do that and has been well supported by that employer has had a powerful effect on encouraging others in that environment to be open about their mental health problems. So there are other employers who recognise that. The right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) is not in his place, but he referred to a Disability Confident event that he has run. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam is also interested in this area, and I hosted a Disability Confident event in my own constituency a couple of weeks ago. I have written to all right hon. and hon. Members to encourage them to do the same in their constituencies, partly to engage with those small and medium-sized employers that might otherwise be unfamiliar with the campaign.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam wrote an article for PoliticsHome today entitled, “I don’t like Mondays—how work can affect mental health”. My only criticism of the piece is that he urged UK plc to take action. I know what he meant, but it is worth remembering that we are also talking about UK Ltd, because half the work force is employed by small and medium-sized enterprises, and they do not always have the human resources support or access to services that larger businesses have.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne referred to BT. The head of occupational health and well-being there, Dr Paul Litchfield, has produced two independent reports for the Government. I waited until he had concluded that work, and therefore had only one hat on, before visiting BT, where I had a very positive experience. The hon. Member for North Durham spoke very positively about its programme. He is right that BT puts a lot of effort into supporting employees with mental health problems, and not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is absolutely in its business interest. It has a very high staff retention rate. It keeps almost everybody who develops a mental health problem at work, and the vast majority in their existing roles, although sometimes they have to change role. I heard four individuals give powerful testimonials about the support they had received from the company. I thought that it was incredibly positive that they felt so open in discussing some quite difficult issues they had had in front of their management chain. They clearly work in a very positive environment.

I will mention universal credit before drawing my remarks to a conclusion, because the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston would think it remiss of me not to do so. I do not pretend that universal credit solves every problem on the planet, but I think that there are two areas where it is very positive for mental health. The first is the way that it has been set up, because it is about getting work coaches to engage with people earlier, looking at what support they need. If someone falls out of work and approaches the jobcentre—I think this is the thrust of the point made by the hon. Member for North Durham—we want the support to be delivered earlier in the process, rather than later. Universal credit has been set up in such a way that it is about having that conversation, looking at what someone can do and delivering support earlier, which I think will help. It is not the only solution, but I think that it will make things better.

Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) on securing this debate. He takes a close interest in asbestos-related issues. A little while ago, we both took part in an Adjournment debate on other issues related to asbestos and safety.

I start by echoing the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments towards the late Paul Goggins. I remember very clearly the debate in the House on the Mesothelioma Act 2014 shortly after his sad death. I also echo the hon. Gentleman’s generous comments about my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who picked up the baton on that occasion, although I do not echo his comments about football. Coming from Gloucestershire, which is a rugby-playing part of the world, I should probably leave the football dispute to other people. [Interruption.] It is probably not good for me to talk about rugby in your presence, Mr Owen, so we will move on.

This has been a very good debate, and it has been helpful in the context of yesterday’s written statement. I will answer some of the questions that colleagues have raised. Following some of the contributions, including from the shadow Minister, it is worth briefly placing on record that the scheme that was legislated for last year, the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme, is of course not the only scheme in statute to address such difficult issues. The Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 set up the first scheme. That had significant gaps in it, which is why the previous Government, with the support of the then Conservative Opposition, introduced the 2008 scheme in the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008, which deals with those who did not necessarily work in the industry, but were self-employed, or, in some cases, family members of those who worked in the industry. This scheme comes in the wake of that to deal with some of the issues that those schemes did not deal with.

It is worth putting on the record the scope of the schemes. Although the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned them, the 1979 scheme and the 2008 scheme are both Great Britain schemes, so they do not apply to Northern Ireland. The responsibility for welfare policy lies with the Northern Ireland Executive. The 2014 scheme, which we are discussing today, is a UK-wide scheme and applies in Northern Ireland as well as England, Scotland and Wales.

To pick up the point raised by the hon. Member for Strangford, people in Northern Ireland have three years to apply for the scheme from the point of diagnosis, which is the same as in England, Scotland and Wales, so I do not think there is a difference in the way the scheme operates. However, he is right to point out that the previous two schemes do not apply in Northern Ireland.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he knows I have to leave fairly shortly and I wanted to intervene in advance of that. After the announcement has been made, when does the Minister hope to have direct contact with the Minister responsible in the Northern Ireland Assembly so that we can co-ordinate the delivery of the compensation plan for the whole of the United Kingdom—Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Mr Harper]

I referred to the hon. Gentleman’s point first because I know that he has other pressing business on behalf of his constituents, and he had the courtesy to let me know, so I wanted to deal with his point while he was still in the Chamber. As he knows, I plan to meet the Northern Ireland Minister with responsibility for welfare to discuss other matters to do with welfare in the wake of the Stormont House agreement. I will ask my officials to place this issue on the agenda and we can have a conversation about that to make sure it is clear how it will be implemented in Northern Ireland.

One point flowed through the remarks of the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford. I will set out my understanding of the position, which is clear. There was a lot of discussion about the levy on the industry. The scheme is effectively demand-led: people make applications to it and the costs of the scheme are then recovered through a levy on the industry. The 3% that has been talked about is a cap. The insurance industry agreed that if the cost remained below that level, it would absorb the cost of the scheme and would not pass it on to other employers who take out employers’ liability insurance through increased premiums. That was important. The Government did not want the cost of the scheme to fall on employers across Britain: we wanted it to be absorbed by the insurance industry.

So the 3% is a cap, not a target. The costs of the scheme are calculated and then the levy is calculated to recover the costs of the scheme. The hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton, for Strangford and for Stretford and Urmston referred to Lord Freud’s written statement on 28 November last year. He set out the costs of the scheme in the first period of the year, how much that encompassed and how much would therefore be recovered from the insurance industry. That position is clear. [Interruption.] Let me finish this thought and then I will take a question.

Hon. Members seem to have envisaged, although it was not envisaged by the Government, that there would be a 3% levy, some of the money from which would be used for settling claims and the rest would form a pot of money that could be distributed as Ministers or others saw fit. However, it is a cap on the costs that land on the industry. The industry agreed that if that remained the cap, it would absorb the costs of the scheme and not pass them on to employers more generally.

Personal Independence Payments

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly sensible point. The solution is to fix things so that people are not having to wait so long. Clearly, we have to state a time. People have various health conditions and disabilities, and we have to draw a line somewhere, but the real solution for the cases that the hon. Gentleman mentions is to do what we are doing, which is to ensure that people going through the process have an assessment within a sensible time. Then the issue that he set out simply does not arise, because they are getting an assessment, a relatively speedy decision and the support that they need. That is the solution for those with a progressive condition, with a longer prognosis, but obviously for those with a terminal illness who have a very short time to live, we have put in place a much faster process, which is working well.

The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead mentioned interventions. The point of them is to ensure that the amount of PIP paid is correct, so that awards can be adjusted upwards if someone’s needs have increased or downwards if they have decreased. That has happened in a very small volume of cases to date. The hon. Lady gave a specific example of one of her constituents. Interventions are set on the basis of when needs change and when awards are made. Given that interventions can go in both directions, it is certainly not in the interests of the Department to review awards more frequently than is necessary, because to do so creates unnecessary work.

The hon. Lady mentioned reassessment. There are two kinds of reassessment going on. For those who have time-limited awards, there is a process called natural reassessment—the names are not brilliantly informative—which is being switched on only in areas where we know that we have the capacity to carry it out. One of the things that I do before I take those decisions is to ensure that our assessment providers have the necessary capacity, and I have been switching the process on only when where there is that capacity.

The hon. Lady mentioned managed reassessment, which has previously been announced as starting in October, under which those with an indefinite DLA claim will be reassessed. We have made it clear that we will roll that out only where and when we have the capacity to do so. It is clearly not in our interest to start reassessing people if the system does not have the capacity to do so. By the way, I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for his positive comments about DWP staff and staff in my private office, where he has had to raise issues. People do not often say nice things, so I acknowledge his comments on behalf of the Department.

Colleagues from Northern Ireland raised a number of matters. The hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan) talked about the Stormont House agreement. I have been in correspondence with Mervyn Storey, the Minister with responsibility for welfare in Northern Ireland, and he and I are trying to get a date in the diary to meet. One thing that we will talk about is the progress that has been made on the Stormont House agreement and welfare reform. I am sure that we will both want to talk about the lessons learned from rolling out PIP in Great Britain, which may apply to the roll-out in Northern Ireland.

[Jim Shannon]

I understand that relevant measures will be going through the Northern Ireland Assembly during the next fortnight, so the implementation in Northern Ireland will be in place in time for the Minister’s meeting with Mervyn Storey.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. There are two issues: the legislative process—I take his word about the timetable for that—and the implementation and operational matters. The Department and I will provide every assistance to the Northern Ireland Executive to make sure that that goes smoothly. It is worth putting on record—

Personal Independence Payments

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Harper]

I will come to that in a minute, because I will discuss the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) about paper-based reviews, meaning assessments made based on the paperwork without having to call someone in.

The general point arising out of the specific cases raised by the hon. Member for Bolton South East and other Members is on delays. I have been frank that delays are not acceptable since I made my first appearance at questions; when I gave my evidence at length to the Work and Pensions Committee, on which the hon. Member for Edinburgh East serves; and during the summer when I dealt with Members’ correspondence. The top priority when the Prime Minister asked me to do this job was to get the delays dealt with. That is my priority. I have been spending a considerable amount of time with my officials and meeting with both assessment providers to put it right. A new team of officials have taken over the work and are driving improved performance. We are working with the assessment providers and working with the oldest cases to improve it.

The hon. Lady asked for specifics. Between them, the two assessment providers have doubled the number of health professionals working through recruitment and training, and have increased the number of assessment centres—I will cover specifically the points raised by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) in a minute—and extended their opening hours.

We have increased the number of paper-based assessments, so in many cases it should be possible, based on the paperwork that people produce, to make a decision without having to call them in for an assessment. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East is right that, at the beginning of the process, the number ran very low and below where we expected it to be. We have improved the process. I hope she will be pleased to know that, when claimants have been unable to work and have gone through the work capability assessment, we are joining up the process, so that we take the ESA85—the report from the work capability assessment—and put it with their PIP form and any other evidence they have provided. That is enabling us to make more decisions based on the paperwork without needing to call people in for assessments. I hope that is sensible.

[Jim Shannon]

Those are admirable steps in the right direction, and we appreciate them. Might it also be a good idea to set targets to reduce those figures within a certain period, given all the things that are happening? Sometimes if things are emphasised with targets, they are delivered.

[Mr Harper]

I will come to that in a minute, but let me deal with the point I was going to make on the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and Northern Ireland. These issues are, of course, devolved, so all the points he made about his constituents and the welfare system, although perfectly reasonable, should be addressed not to me but to the Minister responsible in the Northern Ireland Executive. I have no responsibility for such issues in Northern Ireland; they are devolved.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way again?

[Mr Harper]

I will let the hon. Gentleman intervene once more, but I want to deal with the issues for which I am responsible, rather than ones for which I am not.

[Jim Shannon]

We know where the responsibility lies, but we also know that Capita is the company responsible not only for Northern Ireland but for central England and Wales. I am conscious that the system came in because the Government drove through the new PIP system. That is universal, so there is, in effect, a policy in Northern Ireland. The Minister is not the person responsible—I understand that the Minister in Northern Ireland is responsible—but the debate was secured for the purposes of illustrating where the PIP system is falling down across the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Harper]

I am pleased to deal with the issues in Great Britain, but in Northern Ireland this is not my responsibility; there is a separate contract for Northern Ireland. I am happy to be accountable and to have people beat me up—figuratively speaking only, hopefully—for the things I am responsible for, but I am not responsible for the welfare system in Northern Ireland. That is the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Executive and the Minister for Social Development. The hon. Gentleman’s points are perfectly well made and I will deal with them as best I can—he has raised the same issues as Members from Great Britain. However, for Northern Ireland, I am afraid he needs to direct his points to the Minister and the Executive.

The initiatives I was setting out have meant that providers have quadrupled their output since January. Hon. Members quoted the latest published statistics, which were published in September. They gave the statistics for July, showing that, by then, we had increased the number of decisions to more than 35,000 per month, and there will obviously be a new set of statistics published in December, which will bring the figures up to date to September.

The Department was referred to by a couple of hon. Members. Changes to our processes, our IT systems and the work we do with providers have improved the process.

The hon. Member for Bolton South East referred to claimant communications, emphasising the need to be clearer to claimants. We have improved the communications at the front end of the process so that claimants know what the best evidence to supply is. We have also been clearer with people to let them know how long their claim may take. I know that it is not great when people are told that their claim will take a long time. I will go on to say a bit more about what we are doing about the delays, but at least we are being clearer with people, so that they know what to expect, which is better than their not knowing and having to keep chasing up progress reports.

Since April, we have been confirming to people, by sending a text message, that we have received their PIP form, so they know it has been received and not lost. I cannot remember who asked me about that—I think it was the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View. I do not have the data to hand on the number of people who have reported that they have sent a form back that has then been lost, but I will go away and consider it. I do not know whether we have that data, but I will investigate and write to the hon. Lady. In fact, I will write to all hon. Members attending the debate so that they are aware of the data.

Immigration Controls

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Harper]

I am sure they are wise to trust the right hon. Gentleman, but I have not noticed before in debates that because he is a Labour party spokesman, Labour Back Benchers did not believe it necessary to come along and contribute.

I want to spend some time responding to the points raised by my hon. Friends, but first I want to explain briefly why the issue is of great concern. My hon. Friends the Members for Witham and for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) put their finger on it when they said that we inherited a shambles. The previous Government had let migration run out of control at more than 250,000 a year.

The asylum system was also out of control, and my hon Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) alluded to that. When we came to office, we inherited 450,000 cases that had not been concluded; my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), did a sterling job in sorting that out and driving the number down. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that we have not completed that work; we are still working through some very old cases. We know from the work of the chief inspector of borders and immigration that there was a period from 2007, under the previous Government, when, when there were queues, checks were not carried out, to manage the length of the queues. That does not happen now. We have an operating mandate: everyone who arrives at an airport is checked.

The right hon. Member for Delyn mentioned the one mistake that I believe the Labour party has acknowledged. The lack of transitional controls on accession countries in 2004, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster mentioned, was a huge mistake and is part of the reason that immigration is an issue. Parts of the country saw significant and fast growth in the number of migrants, which put public services under pressure. However, the right hon. Gentleman did not mention something that the Labour party skips over. During its period in office, the number of people coming from outside the EU was twice as high as the number from inside the EU. Yes, the Labour Government made a mistake with transitional controls for EU migrants, but what they do not talk about is the fact that twice as many came from outside the EU and there were no legal constraints from EU rules. They let that run out of control.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster talked about the importance of welcoming people who contribute. That is absolutely right. Ministers are always clear, although this is not always reflected in what is reported, about achieving a balance. We want the best and the brightest to come to Britain and we want people to contribute. The Queen’s Speech referred to an immigration Bill and it was clear that it would have two purposes. One was to attract those who wanted to come and to contribute, and the other was to deter those who did not. We must get both parts of that story right; I will touch on the detail in a moment.

My hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster and for Witham talked about issues with EU nationals and where we need to tighten up on those who abuse free movement, particularly when there is criminality. There are some real issues of criminality in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster. Immigration enforcement officers are working closely with his local authority and the Metropolitan police to deal with those involved in what we tend to call low-level criminality, but which has a real impact on UK nationals and visitors who want to come and spend money in our country. We have taken significant steps.

The real issue with EU nationals is that although we can remove them from the country and we have had some successful operations—for example, we removed a significant number of Romanian nationals from Hendon— they can come back. My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster should be aware that we are looking closely at the legal scope to take a tougher approach, and I hope that he will welcome that.

My hon. Friend should also be aware that because of pressure from the Home Secretary at EU level, we finally got the message home. At the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 7 and 8 October, the Commission accepted for the first time that there is an issue with abuse of free movement rights. Commissioner Reding stated that free movement is a fundamental achievement, with which I agree, but the Commission also noted that free movement rights are weakened by abuse and that it would support member states to use existing EU tools—including sanctions such as expulsion and re-entry bans in certain circumstances, with the appropriate safeguards—to fight such abuse. That is very welcome.

The Home Secretary raised those issues with the Commission and with colleagues from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, and we have started to build a sense that there is a problem to solve. If we solve that problem and the problems of abuse, we will strengthen the benefits of free movement across the EU, from which many British citizens benefit, and make Britain a more attractive home for inward investment. I can give my hon. Friends the Members for Witham and for Cities of London and Westminster some comfort that we are addressing that situation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster will also be familiar with Operation Nexus, on which we are working with the Metropolitan police to identify foreign nationals at the point of arrest and to consider where we have immigration powers that may be used alongside criminal justice interventions to remove people from the country who should not be here and who are potentially involved in criminality.

[Jim Shannon]

Operation Nexus is a campaign run by Scotland Yard, which I understand has indicated that it is seeking more resources so that it can do its job better. I understand that Scotland Yard is seeking resources from Europe, too. Have those resources been allocated? If so, are they allocated from Government funds or through European funding?

[Mr Harper]

On resources—I mean to present this in a balanced way—it is not surprising that about a third of criminals in London are foreign nationals, but that is not a hysterical point; it is understandable, because broadly a third of the population of London are foreign nationals. The Metropolitan police’s core job of addressing criminality involves dealing with a significant number of foreign national criminals. The number is not disproportionate; the proportion is about what would be expected, given that there are significant numbers of foreign nationals in London. The tools we are able to give to the Metropolitan police, working with our immigration enforcement officers, means that it can do that job more effectively. We have seen significant success, and we have started to roll out those resources in the west midlands, for example, and increasingly in other police forces across the United Kingdom. I think that will be helpful.

The Home Office is also leading work with the Ministry of Justice and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to address foreign national offenders. We have 16 priority countries—not 10, as my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said—including two EU member states, Portugal and Romania, which we are supporting in the use of the EU prisoner transfer agreement. We are working closely with colleagues in Romania to consider the effectiveness of Romanian criminals arrested in the UK being able to serve their sentences in Romanian prisons.

As the right hon. Member for Delyn said, we are working closely with the Nigerian Government. That work is not just the agreement, in which he rightly said that the previous Government had a role; the agreement had to be translated into Nigerian law, which has now been done. We have just signed a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement with Albania.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I want to address some of the points raised earlier in the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster talked about the importance of being open for business, and I draw his attention to an excellent one-page guide circulated yesterday by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), who ran the all-party group on balanced migration. The document is an excellent quick guide showing some important statistics on Britain being open for business, the number of business visitors and how easy it is to get a job here after university.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster is right that there are issues, although, largely, they are not issues of perception, but that does not mean they are not important. Of course, part of the job that the Chancellor and the Mayor of London were doing last week in China was to ensure that perceptions catch up with reality. For example, in China the average time for a business visitor to get a visa to Britain is some eight days, and we are looking to make that even faster for high-value visitors. I am not pretending that there are no real issues on the business side, because there are, but, certainly for overseas visitors, we have seen very strong growth.

There are many perception issues, which is why we have to be clear about what we are doing. I regularly meet universities and businesses, and I have met the City of London corporation. We are incrementally improving the system, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right that that is important for Britain.

My hon. Friend is also right to draw attention to health issues and the pressure on St Mary’s hospital, Paddington, in his constituency. He will have seen today that the Health Secretary has published a significant independent audit, which has been peer-reviewed and shows that the NHS is failing to recover some £500 million of income that it should be getting from the foreign nationals that it treats. Frankly, I find it extraordinary that the Labour party, or at least its health spokesman—I do not know whether he talked to the right hon. Member for Delyn—has said that it will not support our proposals on that. I do not know whether that is connected to the Unite union’s opposition to those health proposals. In fact, Unite has said that health workers should not collect money from foreign migrants. I do not know whether Unite is setting Labour’s policy, but that statement is extraordinary. We have a national health service, not an international health service. We are not talking about not treating people, which is one of Unite’s scare stories; it is about charging people who have no right to free treatment.

If my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary and I go to another European country, that country is much better at charging the UK for our health treatment; we are not very good at charging for such treatment. If we went to another country, we would be expected to use private health care. In some countries we would not get health treatment before paying for it. In the UK, though, we are talking about never withholding urgent treatment but ensuring that people pay for it, which is fair to taxpayers. I look forward both to the changes that we are making in the Immigration Bill and to my right hon. Friend’s proposals for charging overseas visitors and being more effective at recovering the money.

I will forgive the right hon. Member for Delyn because he has been in his job for only 10 days, but he should be aware that the Government who stopped fingerprinting clandestines at Calais were the Government of whom he was a member. That change took place in January 2010, which, as far as I can tell from looking at the calendar, was prior to the general election. Perhaps he should check. We will consider whether that is still correct and whether we could improve the process.

In her comprehensive speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Witham referred to ways of improving how we deal with cases. She is right, and several Members have touched on there being in-country issues in the United Kingdom when assessing cases, which is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary broke up the UK Border Agency. We now have a UK visas and immigration operation that has a real focus on customer service for people who are paying for visas and coming to the United Kingdom to work hard, study and contribute. We want to give them good customer service. We are not there yet, but we have significantly improved on the backlogs that we saw in 2012-13. We are trying to improve both the overseas performance we deliver and the performance in-country.

I will continue meeting universities, as I did with my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge—I had an excellent meeting with his university. We have taken some of those meetings forward. I meet the Russell Group, and I meet other top-quality universities in Britain to address their real issues, so that we can continue to increase the number of university students who come to Britain while ensuring that those institutions that are selling not education but immigration permits, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster talked about, are put out of business and cannot abuse the immigration system.

My hon. Friend the Member for Witham talked about people who make lots of claims and delay things, and she is right. I fundamentally believe that we should offer asylum to those who are genuinely fleeing persecution, but if the system is to work and to command public confidence, the flip side is that those whom we find do not need our protection—and where an independent judge agrees that they do not need our protection—should return to their country of origin. We should not have to spend thousands and thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money detaining those people and enforcing their removal. Everyone who abuses our system in such a way is damaging the interests of genuine refugees, to whom I want Britain to give a warm welcome and to enable them to rebuild their lives. [Interruption.] With the greatest respect, this debate was called by my hon. Friend the Member for Witham and I am trying to cover all the important points.

The Immigration Bill will streamline the immigration process and ensure that for foreign national offenders, if we can, we will have non-suspensive appeals so that, as long as they do not face irreversible harm overseas, we can deport them first and hear their appeal afterwards. In many cases, I suspect that will mean that we never hear the appeal, because my hon. Friend and I both know that the appeal is a mechanism to delay their removal from the United Kingdom.

We have had a comprehensive debate that is perhaps a warm-up for the Second Reading of the Immigration Bill, which I look forward to.

Border Force

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s comments. As I have said, it is a bit rich listening to the Labour party moan about all the things that it left us and we are fixing—that constant refrain applies across all Departments. May I say, in answer to a previous question, that the second generation of the Schengen information sharing system will be online, under the current plan, at the end of October 2014? That will very much improve our ability to deal with criminals from elsewhere in the European Union.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Cigarette smuggling through the airports in Northern Ireland is excessive; there is also some indication of paramilitary involvement. Border Force staff have told me that, if there were more staff, they could combat the issue clearly at the airports. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that extra staff are made available in Northern Ireland to take on this issue?

[Mr Harper]

Obviously, we look at the intelligence available to us, particularly on freight. I am well aware of the potential paramilitary implications in Northern Ireland of cross-border smuggling and the fact that organised crime may be funded in this way. So we look at that information on organised crime. We have also created the National Crime Agency, albeit with restrictions on its actions in Northern Ireland in the criminal justice sphere. In the border field, however, the border policing command, the improved intelligence that we get and the increased ability to combat crime will be helpful in combating both the crimes the hon. Gentleman has mentioned and others that cross our borders.

Transit Visas (UK Trawlers)

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) on securing the debate, which I know is important to his constituents. I am, of course, looking forward to visiting his constituency some time in the new year, when I am sure we can discuss the matter further.

I am also pleased to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in the Chamber. I know he has a long-standing interest in this matter from a constituency and a wider Northern Ireland perspective. I listened carefully to what he said, and I will draw his remarks to the attention of the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who has responsibility for fishing. He works closely with people from all parts of the United Kingdom when we set out our policy on fishing and fishing quotas, and when we have debates in the European Union. Thankfully, my job today is not to talk about wider fishing policy, but to talk about the specific issue of crewing and visas.

The use of non-European economic area crew on UK vessels has been an issue for several years, and I know that it is an ongoing concern for my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. The issue has also been raised in Northern Ireland and with colleagues who represent constituencies in Scotland, where fishing is also an important industry. The subject is complex and wide-ranging, and its scope goes beyond immigration. The concern raised by my hon. Friend’s constituent and the Catholic Church in his constituency is about the living and working conditions of people employed in the sector, and I know that that concerns my hon. Friend, too.

I will set out the background of the visa regime for those who work in the sector. Non-EEA migrants can come to the UK to join ships that are currently in the UK but operate outside UK territorial waters—those ships that mostly operate more than 12 nautical miles beyond UK territorial waters. Because those people are joining ships that operate outside the UK, they do not fall under the scope of normal immigration rules, which means they do not need permission to work. However, they do need permission to enter the UK to join the ship—effectively to transit, hence the title of my hon. Friend’s debate. To do so, they must obtain permission to join the ship, either by way of a visa issued overseas, or with the permission of an immigration officer at the UK border. Those provisions are necessary to allow international vessels to change crew, thus allowing fresh crews to arrive in the UK to join ships and outgoing crews to leave ships and return home.

Within the fishing industry, the arrangements mean the UK’s deep-sea fleet has been able to bring in non-EEA fishermen without prior permission to work because the fleet operates mainly outside territorial waters, which is a perfectly legitimate use of the immigration system. Migrants entering through that route are not migrant workers in the usual sense, so the system is not a loophole through which employers can bring in non-EEA workers to carry out work that is not deemed to be sufficiently skilled, as the work is largely taking place outside the UK. We recognise the need for migrant labour in some specific and highly skilled roles in the United Kingdom, but, as my hon. Friend said, businesses should be looking to the local labour market for opportunities to fill lower-skilled roles. That is why non-EEA nationals cannot come to work on vessels that operate within the 12-mile limit—the inshore fleet—under the “to join ship” provisions.

[Jim Shannon]

One of the problems in Plymouth and the area I represent is around incentivising local people to go out on the fishing boats. The danger is apparent, and there is also a skill level that has to be achieved. Those on the boats have great skill, because they also fillet the fish. As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) asked, how can local people be more incentivised to participate in the job opportunities on fishing fleets?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. I chose my words with care. I did not say that the work was low-skilled, but that it was not sufficiently skilled to meet our criteria. The Migration Advisory Committee, which is the expert committee that the Government often commission to consider the appropriate skill level required for jobs before we allow people to come to the UK from outside the EEA, did not think the jobs were sufficiently skilled. He raises an important point, however, which I think was the nub of the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport: in an environment in which UK nationals are without work, what is the industry doing to ensure that we can train UK or EU nationals to the appropriate skill levels so that they can staff the inshore operations without needing to bring in people from outside? I will touch on that later.

Visas would not be issued for people to come to work on inshore vessels. People who work—or employ people to work—on vessels in the inshore fleet after they have come to the UK on a “to join ship” visa, or sought to enter at the border to join a ship, are breaking immigration law and behaving unlawfully.

Some years ago, it became apparent that some in the UK inshore fishing fleet were using non-EEA labour to crew their ships. The UK Border Agency made it clear that that was not acceptable and that immigration rules needed to be enforced in that area. However, genuine concerns were raised at the time, including by the Scottish and Northern Ireland Governments, that the UK fishing fleet relied on non-EEA labour and that immediate enforcement of the immigration rules would have a significant and negative impact on that fleet.

In light of those concerns, in March 2010, the previous Government introduced temporary—I stress the word “temporary”—concessions that allowed for up to 1,500 visas to be issued to non-EEA fishermen to work on the UK inshore fleet to give it sufficient time to transition to using local labour for such jobs. In other words, that was to give it time to identify the labour requirement and put in place the relevant training mechanisms so that people could gain the appropriate skills to staff our inshore fleet.

Those concessionary arrangements came with strict conditions. Permission was granted only after appropriate assurances were given that the workers would be paid the minimum wage and—this addresses the point raised by my hon. Friend—that they would be given suitable onshore accommodation when their ships were in port. The take-up of the concession was relatively low. The route was extended last year, and we closed it down for good this August. We will no longer grant permission for non-EEA migrants to work on inshore UK fishing vessels.

The point at the heart of my hon. Friend’s concerns was about how we enforce the rules and ensure that people are playing by them. I shall also address the living and working conditions on board the vessels, which clearly concern him and his constituent, because although the UK Border Agency is not responsible for enforcing that part of the law, and thus I will not go into incredible detail on this, our officials do some work in that area and we work closely with other agencies.

The “to join ship” visas for the fleet that operates outside our territorial waters are granted in the same way as any other visa. They are issued only when a UK Border Agency official overseas or on the border is satisfied that the applicant meets the requirements of the rules. The official therefore has to be satisfied that the applicant is genuinely joining a ship at a UK port and that that vessel will be leaving UK territorial waters in the near future.

The British Chamber of Shipping has expressed concerns that “to join ship” visas are increasingly difficult to come by, particularly for ships that are tied up awaiting cargo, sailing instructions or repair. Our officials rightly question whether crew are actually required in such circumstances, given that the ship will not depart port imminently. The individual circumstances of each application are examined by officers from the UK Border Agency and UK Border Force on a case-by-case basis. Our Border Force officers will always question fishermen and other crew seeking to enter the UK. If they have any doubts about the individual, the company or the vessel that they are joining, they will refuse entry to the United Kingdom.

UK Border Force also regularly undertakes enforcement action to ensure that those who employ non-EEA fishermen do so legally. Border Force cutters regularly patrol UK waters, monitoring vessels, gathering information and intervening when appropriate and necessary. The monitoring allows us to ensure that vessels using non-EEA crew who are here on “to join ship” visas are indeed operating outside UK territorial waters. Alongside that, regular enforcement visits are conducted to ensure that those working on board vessels have the right to do so.

If we find people working illegally on vessels, we treat them in the same way as any other immigration offender and they are liable to removal from the UK. If employers employ people illegally on inshore fleets, they are liable to fines of up to £10,000 for each illegal worker employed. As with all our enforcement activity, we do not accept people hiring outside the immigration rules, and we seek to deal with that in a tough manner.

During the course of enforcement activities on vessels, Border Agency officers may come across unsuitable living and working conditions. There have been tragic consequences of such conditions. My hon. Friend may be aware of the fire on a fishing boat in 2008 in which two Filipino and one Latvian crew member were tragically killed.

Border Force and UK Border Agency officers are concerned primarily with enforcement of the immigration rules and do not have enforcement powers in areas such as employment rights or health and safety, but we certainly do not close our eyes to those things. If, in the course of enforcing immigration rules, Border Force and Border Agency officers come across such conditions, they will draw them to the attention of the appropriate enforcement officials in other agencies, such as the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, with which we have close working relationships. Our enforcement activities are often multi-agency efforts involving the police, the MCA and other agencies, so not only do we enforce immigration rules, but our partners enforce rules on employment rights, the minimum wage and health and safety conditions.

We will continue to work to ensure that all those who do not have a right to work here cannot do so, that those who have a right to work on ships outside UK territorial waters can do so, and that any rogue employers who exploit vulnerable workers, as my hon. Friend suggests, face the full extent of the law. If the inshore fishing fleet requires people to work in the industry, it should look first to the domestic labour force and ensure that people there are appropriately trained.

My hon. Friend raised a point about the International Labour Organisation convention. That, of course, is a matter for the fisheries Minister, so I will draw my hon. Friend’s remarks to his attention and ensure that my hon. Friend receives a reply outlining the Government’s position on the ratification of the convention from officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the Minister.

The hon. Member for Strangford raised a point about training and skills, which are devolved issues. I know that the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are working to provide training to the local work force. The Governments, as well as the industry in those parts of the United Kingdom, are engaged in efforts to ensure that the local work force is appropriately skilled for our inshore fishing fleet.

I think that I have covered all the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, and I say again that I look forward to visiting his constituency in the new year, when we can no doubt talk further about these matters.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Not representing a valleys constituency, I do not have the same urge for tidiness as the hon. Gentleman. I am happy with our relatively untidy constitutional settlement. I have no problem with that at all.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Minister has said that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will monitor what happens with the elections that will take place this year. After he has done that, will there be close co-operation and consultation with the parties and the Electoral Commission to find the correct way of proceeding and learning from anything that goes wrong? Is that the suggestion?

[Mr Harper]

Yes, I have discussed this with my right hon. Friend and he intends, as we have discussed in Committee and announced to the House, to consider the experience from this year. We want to work with all the parties in Northern Ireland, just as I have written to all the party leaders in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, to reach some agreement on what works well, what does not work and what needs to change. That will be very much on a cross-party basis.

Individual Electoral Registration

Debate between Mark Harper and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I hear what my hon. Friend—and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie)—says, and I will think further on it. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) will welcome the announcement in my statement that although we are going to leave people on the register who have not individually registered ahead of the general election, those who want to exercise a postal or proxy vote—the areas of greatest concern—will have had to register individually, ensuring an extra safeguard.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Minister has outlined some changes in electoral reform, which we are glad to see happening. Whenever we go knocking on doors, as we do every time there is an election, people always tell us at the last minute that they thought they were on the list, but they have moved house and so forth. Is it possible to allow late registration even beyond the time currently allowed?

[Mr Harper]

Our proposals in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, which will set fixed parliamentary terms so that election dates become more predictable, should enable organisations such as the Electoral Commission and local authorities to run campaigns to improve registration ahead of specific elections. We will know when the date of the election will be. The hon. Gentleman thus makes a valid point. Under our fixed-term Parliament proposals, it should be easier to deliver what he suggests.