HM Passport Office

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend’s point about the qualification for urgent travel was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), and as I said to him earlier, the Passport Office will of course put full details on its website. Either I or the Minister for Security and Immigration will write urgently to Members of Parliament with the full details, so that every Member of Parliament is aware and can advise their constituents fully.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Home Secretary has come to the House today to announce a series of desperate measures in the Passport Service—extending passports, reducing security checks, fast-tracking some applications and adding in many more bureaucratic hurdles to getting a passport. Yet, as I know, Ministers receive weekly updates about the flow of applications and turnaround. It is beyond belief that Ministers were not aware of this problem before it was raised in the House. When will she and her Ministers take responsibility for this? As a former Minister, I know that I discussed ebbs and flows every time that I met officials in the Passport Service, and if there was a problem, I would be on to them about it. What is she doing to make sure that this never happens again?

[Mrs May]

First, I and the Minister for Security and Immigration have said in the House and I have said elsewhere that for some months—since the beginning of the year—it has been clear that the number of applications was increasing. The flow has gone up, has steadied, and has gone up and down. Over that period, the Passport Office has taken action by increasing the number of staff and by increasing the hours during which considerations are done. It is now operating seven days a week from 7 am to midnight, and it is looking at increasing those hours further. The hon. Lady said that we have relaxed the security, but there was no relaxation of security, as I made clear in my announcement to day.

Finally, the hon. Lady talks about a series of measures being taken. Yes, a series of measures is being taken. As I made clear in my statement, there is no single thing that will suddenly change the way in which the Passport Office is able to deal with these applications. What is necessary is not a grand political gesture, but the slow, careful consideration that we have been giving and which will now lead to urgent action by the Passport Office in increasing the number of staff.

Stop-and-Search

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

There are two elements of the extra community involvement that we are introducing. One is the requirement that forces will have policies at local level to enable members of the community to apply to go out on patrol with them, so that they can see what is happening and can comment on that. The other is the new community trigger in relation to complaints. We will work with forces to ensure that there is a process, such that if there has been a considerable number of complaints about the use of stop-and-search in an area, the police will need to engage with the community about it.

I want to see what is anyway supposed, under the code of practice, to be there, which is that police forces are working with their communities—talking to them about where particular powers are used, and explaining how those powers are targeted—so that police forces can get community buy-in from the very start.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Home Secretary’s comments are very welcome. One of the big issues in my constituency and around the country is not the number of stop-and-searches, but the manner in which officers conduct them. I hope that the training will take into account schemes such as a “changing places” scheme that has been pioneered in Hackney. She has talked about the proposals being taken up voluntarily, and I hear her argument about that being quicker in the short term, but will she tell us how many forces have said that they will sign up?

[Mrs May]

In response to the hon. Lady’s last point, as I said in my statement, the Metropolitan police has signed up and I have written to every other force asking them to sign up. The police and crime commissioners in the major metropolitan areas, where the power is likely to be used to a significant extent, are of course Labour police and crime commissioners, and I entirely trust that Labour Front Benchers will encourage them to adopt such processes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

Obviously, as my hon. Friend will appreciate, I cannot comment on cases that are before the courts. I strongly support the efforts of the Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure that prosecutions take place, and the police forces who are taking the matter forward in a productive way. I mentioned a moment ago the action that the Department of Health is taking and she will be aware that guidance has been issued to schools by the Secretary of State for Education, so there is a joined-up approach across Government. The question of mandatory reporting will be considered by the Department of Health and others as the initiative unrolls.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the past month, two women in Hackney have been killed by violent partners, one with her 23-month-old child. Those women had talked to their friends about the risks that they faced. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that funding for organisations such as the Family Rights Group, which is based in Hackney, is not stopped by the Department for Education so that friends and family members, as well as potential victims, have somewhere to go?

[Norman Baker]

I am not familiar with the DFE funding, but I can tell the hon. Lady that the Home Office has allocated £40 million to deal with these important matters. I am deeply sorry to hear of the events in her constituency. We seek to learn lessons from each case. I remind her that we have introduced domestic violence disclosure orders and protection orders to help women in such situations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I agree completely with the hon. Lady that this issue needs addressing. I am happy to tell the House that it is being addressed. The Metropolitan police plan to recruit 5,000 new constables between now and 2015, and their aim is that 40% of them should be from a minority background, to reflect the population of London as a whole. This indeed is a serious issue, which the Metropolitan police are addressing.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

13. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the Immigration Bill on red tape for businesses.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

The Government have published a number of impact assessments in relation to the provisions in the Immigration Bill, setting out the costs and benefits of the proposals. These include an assessment of the impacts on businesses.

[Meg Hillier]

I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box. It is good to see another woman on the Conservative Front Bench—one who is speaking this time.

During the Immigration Bill Committee, the former Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), promised that there would be a mechanism to enable constituents who were extending their leave to remain to have the right documents in order to prove that to landlords and others, as required under the Bill. Can the Minister give me any update on how long that will take to come into place? If not, perhaps she could write to me.

[Karen Bradley]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know that she worked very hard on the Immigration Bill Committee. We will look carefully at what she said and respond shortly.

Modern-day Slavery

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great pleasure to speak on this very important topic and I congratulate hon. Members on securing the debate. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), whom I want to defend, because her opening speech was not party political, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) claimed. My hon. Friend’s work over many years, including leading the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, and the way in which she has challenged Governments of any colour belie that claim.

The Minister is a good Minister and I do not think he is afraid to be challenged by Opposition or Government Members on this issue. I know that he welcomes challenges to improve legislation and that he genuinely listens and will take on board our points. My hon. Friend’s comments were made in that respect. It is unfair to bring party politics into an issue on which we all agree that something needs to and must be done.

It also gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), who made some typically thoughtful comments. I want to pick up his point about bank accounts, which is a big issue for the Minister and it is at the heart of not only this but other questions. Over the years, I have employed people to look after my children. One young woman was unable to get a bank account. It did not mean the end of her employment—it ended eventually—but she repeatedly could not get one. That is often a convenient excuse, because it means that people can dodge being in the system.

The issue is important in relation to people who are trafficked and become victims, because they are told that they cannot get a bank account, and those trying to hide below the radar. There is a genuine issue about the ability of banks to provide people with basic bank accounts. The number of hoops people now have to go through in providing identification can make it genuinely challenging, and it is sometimes seen as very difficult. In that respect, the Minister may want to challenge the banks, through his ministerial contacts, to address the point made by the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire.

I have had a long interest in modern-day slavery and other issues that I want to raise. I first came across unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the mid-1990s, when I was chair of neighbourhood services on Islington council. Young children would be found wandering up and down Holloway road with no papers and very vague stories about where they had come from, and they ended up being put into the care of social services. Many of them had been trafficked, but identification was very difficult. The borough of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), Hillingdon, was also greatly affected. Two of the hot spots were Hillingdon—perhaps obviously, because of the airport—and Islington.

That demonstrates that trafficking takes many forms. We have heard a lot about the workplace, and I will touch less on that than on other matters. As hon. Members have said, not all victims are locked up: freedoms can be restricted in many ways.

I recently visited Nigeria with the all-party group on Nigeria, which I chair. We went to look at human rights, but we were very shocked to discover some of the issues concerning children’s rights and child trafficking in particular. Nigeria is the main source country for people trafficked into this country, so it is vital that great thought is given to whether a British Bill can help to tackle the issue in the countries of origin. We need to prevent and tackle trafficking at source, not just carry out enforcement, although I agree with other hon. Members that enforcement is also important.

Benin City in Nigeria is the capital of human trafficking. As we have heard, people who have been trafficked become traffickers in turn, and there is a sort of career progression in Benin. The Nigerian authorities are aware of and keen to tackle that real hot spot. The all-party group met those at the national agency dealing with child trafficking, which is working hard to identify, tackle and prosecute people, as well as to prevent trafficking from happening in the first place, but they are few in number and resources are limited, while Nigeria is a huge and populous country.

From a British perspective, there are also deeply ingrained and worrying cultural attitudes, but I know from speaking to many Nigerians in this country and Nigeria that they share such concerns. The domestic servitude of children is widely accepted, and the all-party group was shocked to hear it defended very often when we raised it in talking to people in various circles.

Child traffickers are aided by the poverty, and by profits that can be made along the line. Those profits, as someone is trafficked through the hands of perhaps 12 traffickers, are immense. Until we look at the supply chain involving trafficked people and work out how to tackle each of its stages, we will not solve the source problem of people being brought into the UK, although enforcement should continue.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is speaking with a good, deep understanding of the problem. Along with Hillingdon and her constituency, Solihull has also been a dispersal area for asylum-seeking children. Her point about it being very hard for certain local authorities with many trafficked children to have the necessary expertise at local government level to reach into foreign, and sometimes very chaotic, countries of origin makes the case for a multi-agency, multi-departmental approach, particularly to assist local authorities that are severely affected.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. For the record, I should make it clear that I was talking about my time in Islington in the mid-1990s, but there are issues in Hackney in my constituency, and I will touch on them.

In Nigeria, the all-party group saw some good practice. I would particularly highlight the yellow card for children’s rights that Lagos provides to as many agencies as possible to tell people what children’s rights are, which the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) described. There is strong legislation in Nigeria to support children’s rights, but the desire to tackle such problems is not as widespread as it could be and they are often excused. We heard of terrible situations in which very young girls are raped and the rapist then buys off the family for less than the price of a parking ticket in the UK because of the shame. The girl will find it very hard to get married if she has the stain of rape on her and it brings shame on the family. Sometimes that is just a criminal matter, but sometimes it is to do with trafficking.

I commend the report of the all-party group to the Minister. It is worth reading because it highlights the challenges in Nigeria and the need to highlight human rights across that country. That is a wider issue than the subject of this debate, but the report makes interesting points about trafficking and its impact on children.

I want to make a couple of points to the Minister while he is forming the modern slavery Bill. I reiterate what colleagues have said about domestic worker visas. Many families in Nigeria see domestic servitude as the norm. People excuse it and say, “The girl from the village is getting educated. What’s the problem?” However, the girl from the village does not have the freedom to move. Sometimes, families bring such individuals to the UK. Domestic worker visas did provide some protection. The Minister will know that no immigration system is perfect and that people will exploit bits around the edges whatever system is in place. However, things have gone too far the other way and the Minister needs to ensure that domestic workers are supported. If he does so, it might stem the flow of such workers into the country and act as a preventive measure.

The Minister for Immigration mentioned in a recent sitting of the Immigration Public Bill Committee that Operation Paladin is still in operation. I would be keen to hear more details from the Minister, if not in this debate then at another time, on how it is working across different airports. The operation was introduced in Gatwick. Trained professionals watched the people who were coming into the airport to see whether the children were related to them. They could recognise whether a child was trafficked and intervene. That does not prevent trafficking, but it does stop it at the border. Given the announcement about further cuts to the Home Office budget, I would be interested to hear whether there is a threat to Operation Paladin or whether there are plans to extend it. At the very least, it should be continued. As the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire said, if we are serious about a human trafficking Bill, we should be enforcing the law as it stands and keeping the mechanisms that work.

Identifying the victims is obviously a big issue. I have had experience of that in my constituency. The national referral mechanism is important, but it should not be an alternative to well briefed local agencies, whether they be social services or schools. There is an opportunity, perhaps not in legislation but certainly in practice, to ensure that schools can recognise and understand trafficked children. Churches and community groups can also have a role. Often, vicars in my constituency meet trafficked people and are able to have a more honest conversation with them than others can. I have met trafficked people, but it has usually been long after they have been trafficked.

Schools in Hackney praise the forced marriage unit for its swift action. If they report a suspected forced marriage, the team is down there straight away. Usually that is the day before the school holidays or very close to them. We need something similar to happen if there is a suspicion of trafficking while the child is in a safe place. Schools and other agencies need to have somewhere they can go. That goes back to what the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire and the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) said about the need for a national approach.

We know that the most trafficked group of people is children. In 2012, 500 children were identified, but we know that the number of trafficked children is likely to be higher. That is one reason why having a commissioner would be a good idea. It would help us to get proper data, which would allow us to see what progress is being made and to highlight the scale of the problem for the public. In reality, a lot of trafficked people live below the radar for many years. That makes it very difficult to track down the perpetrators.

There is a delicate balance to be struck, because if anyone who said that they had been trafficked 10 years ago got to stay in the country, it would provide traffickers with an incentive. I am aware that the Minister has to tread that line. We must not incentivise people to use children as a way to get different treatment in the immigration system. It is important to acknowledge that issue, but that does not mean that we should not take robust action or support trafficked children as much as we can.

My big concern is people who are trafficked and appear many years later. I regularly meet young people in my surgery. Usually they appear at the point when they might want to go to university and therefore need status in this country. On questioning they are vague about what happened—an aunt or friend of the family brought them in, but they have lost touch with that adult. That child is not at fault, but the people who trafficked them have gone—although sometimes we cannot be sure—and they have great difficulty getting through the system.

Sometimes people are not enslaved, as such, although it is difficult to be sure. I spoke to one woman at my surgery, and we eventually got to a point in the conversation where I said, “You have two children, who is the father?”—I was asking about the father’s citizenship. I said, “Did you want to sleep with the father of the children?” and she shrugged and said, “He gave me somewhere to stay.” In some ways she did not consider herself a victim because she had been downtrodden to the point where she needed a roof over her head, and in return the man got what he wanted. There are real challenges in identifying victims who have been under the radar for so long that there is no likely prospect of finding their trafficker. That is a two-pronged issue for the Minister: tackling the perpetrators, but also supporting the victims.

The national reporting mechanism includes a reflection period of 45 days to decide what to do with a potential victim of trafficking, but that does not capture people who have some freedoms but no paperwork or the ability to do what they want, even if they can come and go out of the house and are not locked away. The system also does not cover the needs of those who will be slow to tell their story, often for reasons of fear—I will touch on some issues with African abuse in a moment.

Victims must be eligible for legal aid. I know that is not the Minister’s Department, but we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have criticised much of the Government’s attitude to legal aid, but I recognise that that is where we are. For the purposes of this debate, however, I say to the Minister that I—and Members across the House, I am sure—will be behind him if we can ensure that people have the right advice once they have been identified as a potential victim of trafficking. That is important because it helps the system work better. In the long term it will save the Home Office money, as well as ensuring that that person has the best support possible to get their case across and be relocated home, if appropriate, or supported in the UK.

At the beginning of my remarks I said that prevention was the most important thing. The Home Office is promising to work with source countries, but we need resources for that to happen. We hear that often a law passed in this Parliament helps Nigerians to tackle corruption and so on, and similarly, if we get this issue right we may help tackle it in Nigeria. I think we need a review of our national reporting mechanism.

I said I would touch on issues concerning child abuse in Africa, although adults are trafficked too. Traffickers often use witchcraft and juju as a means of control. Juju priests are held in high esteem and command a great deal of respect which, when combined with a fear of witchcraft, means that many people are very vulnerable. People are afraid of what will happen to them if they declare they have been trafficked. That fear is hard to understand from the perspective of many Members in the Chamber today, but it is very real. People are much controlled and will not escape even if given the chance—it is as much of a ball and chain as a physical one would be. Trafficking victims in the UK often display signs that are identifiable with juju and witchcraft, and the torso of Adam, found floating in the Thames, first highlighted that very spectacularly to the UK.

The key issue is identifying victims, as too often that is a barrier. I hope that an anti-slavery commissioner can be genuinely empowered with investigation arms and good links to the National Crime Agency and other police as appropriate, and I will be watching the Government on that issue. The modern slavery unit should not be a passing fad in the Home Office, but something real that will engage people. I commend my colleagues for initiating this debate, and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Immigration Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The problem with the argument that the hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members have been advancing in relation to landlords is that we already have an example of a system where people check the status of individuals: employers do that, and they are provided with support by the Home Office. Exactly the same will happen with landlords. The idea that this is something entirely new is completely wrong. Many landlords already ask exactly these sorts of questions of the people to whom they are renting properties.

Establishing the identity of illegal migrants is a further difficulty in the removal process. Visa applicants are required to give their fingerprints to an entry clearance officer before they enter the UK. Following my border reforms last year, the fingerprints of arriving passengers are checked to ensure that the person who has travelled to the UK is the rightful holder of the visa, but there are gaps in our powers to take fingerprints, and the Bill closes them. When the police encounter a suspect, they have the power to check fingerprints, but when an immigration officer encounters a suspected illegal migrant, they may check fingerprints only where consent is given unless they arrest them. Not surprisingly, not everyone consents. Officers need powers equivalent to those of the police so that when they find an illegal migrant they can check their fingerprints to confirm their suspicion and start enforcement action.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mrs May]

I have already been very generous in taking interventions.

Part 2 is about appeals. The appeals system is complex and costly. Seventeen different immigration decisions attract rights of appeal, and when a case finally comes to a close some applicants put in fresh applications and start all over again. That is not fair to the public, who expect swift enforcement of immigration decisions. The Bill sorts out the mess. In future, the 17 rights of appeal will be reduced to four. Foreign criminals will not be able to prevent deportation simply by dragging out the appeals process, as many such appeals will be heard only once the criminal is back in their home country. It cannot be right that criminals who should be deported can remain here and build up a further claim to a settled life in the United Kingdom.

As well as reducing the number of appeals, we propose to simplify the process. An appeal to an immigration judge is a very costly and time-consuming way of correcting simple casework errors that could be resolved by a request to the Home Office to review the decision. This is what we already do overseas for millions of visa applicants. Applicants will be able to contact the Home Office and ask for a simple administrative review to remedy such errors. That can resolve errors in decisions cheaply and quickly, within 28 days, and it is substantially quicker than the average 12 weeks that it currently takes to appeal via the tribunal with all the costs that that incurs. The Bill creates an effective and efficient appeals system that will ensure that the process cannot be abused or manipulated to delay the removal of those who have no basis for remaining in the UK, but it still provides an opportunity to challenge a decision where fundamental rights are concerned. The public are fed up with cases where foreign criminals are allowed to stay because of an overly generous interpretation by the courts of article 8—the right to respect for family and private life. Under the current system, the winners are foreign criminals and immigration lawyers and the losers are the victims of these crimes and the law-abiding public.

The Government first sought to address this issue in July 2012 by changing the immigration rules with the intention of shifting the weight the courts give to the public interest. This House debated and approved the new rules, which set out the factors in favour of deportation and the factors against it. The courts accept that the new rules provide a complete code for considering article 8 where we are deporting foreign criminals. However, some judges have still chosen to ignore the will of Parliament and go on putting the law on the side of foreign criminals instead of the public. I am sending a very clear message to those judges: Parliament wants a law on the people’s side, the public want a law on the people’s side, and this Government will put the law on the people’s side once and for all. This Bill will require the courts to put the public interest at the heart of their decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend will know that we are looking at the whole question of how we deal with human trafficking, or—let us call it what it is—modern slavery. Next year we will introduce a Bill to deal with modern slavery, with a particular focus on dealing with the criminal gangs who undertake this activity. The launch of the new National Crime Agency gives us an even greater ability to deal with those gangs. I want to ensure that we not only start to reduce but end this horrible crime of human trafficking—modern slavery.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

I am going to make some further progress.

Part 3 is about migrants’ access to services. We want to ensure that only legal migrants have access to the labour market, free health services, housing, bank accounts and driving licences. This is not just about making the UK a more hostile place for illegal migrants; it is also about fairness. Those who play by the rules and work hard do not want to see businesses gaining an unfair advantage through the exploitation of illegal labour, or to see our valuable public services, paid for by the taxpayer, used and abused by illegal migrants.

Hon. Members will know that the right of non-European economic area nationals to work in the UK is restricted, and where the right to work is granted, it may be restricted to a particular employer or limited hours. Employers are required to ensure that their employees have the right to work in the UK and if they do not, they will face penalties, but the process for enforcing those fines is complicated. The Bill will streamline that process, making employers think again before hiring illegal labour.

Let me turn to the national health service. Many temporary migrants are currently allowed free access to the NHS as if they were permanent residents. Such an approach is extremely generous, particularly compared with wider international practice. Our intention is to bring the rules regulating migrant access to the NHS into line with wider Government policy on migrant access to benefits and social housing. That means restricting access to free NHS care to those non-EEA nationals with indefinite leave to remain and those granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK. Under this Bill, other migrants will have to contribute.

Temporary migrants seeking to stay in the UK for more than six months will have to pay an immigration health surcharge on top of their visa fee. I assure the House that this surcharge will make the system fairer and will not undermine our aim to attract the brightest and the best. We have carefully examined what other countries do and will ensure that the UK offer is a competitive one in a tough global market.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The most recent figures for net migration show that it has increased. The hon. Gentleman has chosen to support a target that ignores illegal migration altogether and that includes university students who contribute to the economy. Furthermore, he can claim that progress has been made in meeting the target if the number of British citizens who leave the country or who fail to return to the country increases. That is the target that he is pursuing.

[Meg Hillier]

Many of my constituents are first, second or multiple generation immigrants who work hard to prop up our NHS and other public services. Does my right hon. Friend agree that penalising people when their families come over by adding extra charges to every application is unfair on those people who are breaking their back for Britain?

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I agree with the hon. Lady, who I know has a long record of constructive activity in this field, that missing children are particularly vulnerable. That is why the new taskforce I am chairing has on it significant representation from the Department for Education, so that those who are looking after the children can try to reduce the numbers that go missing in the first place.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I visited Nigeria last week with the all-party parliamentary group on Nigeria. While we were there we met the federal agency dealing with trafficked children. Nigeria is the source country for the majority of trafficked people into this country. I welcome the Minister’s taskforce, but does it include people who have an understanding of Nigeria? Perhaps he will update us on his relations with that country.

[Damian Green]

In a previous ministerial job, I, too, visited Nigeria, and the hon. Lady is quite right to raise what is an important issue there. I am happy to assure her that part of the taskforce’s work is specifically to promote greater international co-operation so that in countries such as Nigeria—it is important to have activity going on in such countries as well as in this country—we are establishing and maintaining better links with the authorities.

EU Police, Justice and Home Affairs

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I had the privilege of serving in Her Majesty’s Government for three years as a Minister in the Home Office, negotiating justice and home affairs issues to ensure that our country was a safer place. I had the great privilege of working with the Home Secretary’s two immediate predecessors, both of whom were excellent Home Secretaries who had the interests of the public very much at heart. I therefore have enormous respect for the position of Home Secretary, and I extend that respect to any incumbent in the role because I know the challenges they face. I believed this Home Secretary when, on taking on the job, she said that she took her role of protecting the public very seriously. I therefore have to ask why she is playing such games with the safety of the British public in her approach to the opt-out on justice and home affairs issues. Is this an example of dog-whistle politics as she burnishes her credentials in preparation for taking over from the Prime Minister in due course? If so, she is not doing very well today, given that not many of her Eurosceptic friends have even bothered to attend the debate or listen to her speech.

We need to look closely at the proposals. The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) talked about the rights of British citizens in relation to these EU measures. I want to talk about the rights of British victims, which should be at the heart of what any Home Secretary does. If we were to opt out of all the justice and home affairs measures, we could in theory opt back into certain mechanisms. However, it is important to make it clear that that is not an automatic right. Because so many EU member states rightly support the European arrest warrant, there is a strong likelihood that they would agree to a UK opt-in on that particular issue.

Let us be clear about what the Government are saying to us. They are not clear on a lot of points, but on one thing they are quite clear. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and many other Conservatives on both the Back and the Front Benches are telling us that they will negotiate, or renegotiate, an entry into the European arrest warrant on more favourable terms, or stay out of it. At least, that is what the hints we have heard suggest—nothing very concrete, but that is what has come through in numerous debates in this House.

The reality, however, is that the treaty does not allow for automatically amending the European arrest warrant. We know that it is popular among other EU member states and it has been hard fought for and hard negotiated. As the hon. Member for Daventry highlighted and as others have said, there is a mood for change here and there in how the arrest warrant works, but that is much better done by all 27 nations working together in justice and home affairs Councils and negotiating together to make any amendments. That is better than the UK going it alone, but the UK going it alone is the sort of dog whistle approach that this Government adopt, ensuring that they talk in any language that will appeal to the Eurosceptic Back Benchers of the Conservative party rather than talk about the safety of the British public.

[Michael Connarty]

I want to confirm that my hon. Friend’s analysis is accurate. Along with other members of the European Scrutiny Committee, I have just returned from Lithuania where the Lithuanians were being harangued by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) about how everyone in Europe was turning against the EU, how we are all going to withdraw and he gave the example of the opt outs. They could not believe that any UK parliamentarian could talk about withdrawing from what, as my hon. Friend says, was a hard-negotiated agreement.

[Meg Hillier]

Absolutely. In my three years of negotiations, I was certainly struck by how positive other EU member states were in comparison with our Eurosceptic parliamentarians about the benefits of being members of Europe. We need to be really clear that there is no guarantee that we will be able to amend and then opt back in later. Even if that were to happen, there is no timetable for it, and we could be left uncovered for a period of time. We would have to negotiate 26 separate treaties with our EU colleagues. I cannot see them being very positive about that. Even when we were in government, I was told many times by my European colleagues that the UK was trying to have its cake and eat it. Through detailed and hard-working negotiation across government, however, we made sure that we got the best deal we could for the British public. My personal view is that we need to opt in; we need to amend, if necessary, on a cross-EU 27-member-state basis.

I am still puzzled about why the Home Secretary is lending her name to this risky game and why we are seeing such strong anti-European rhetoric from the Prime Minister. Perhaps it is all about Conservative Back Benchers and the threat to this Government of the UK Independence party. This Home Secretary and this Prime Minister are gambling with the security of the British public and the rights of victims—and we need to make that crystal clear.

That brings me to the other part of this coalition Government. The Liberal Democrats are now a party of government. That sometimes seems difficult to believe, but it is the case. We hear very little from Lib Dem Members, so I was heartened to hear from the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that he is pro the European arrest warrant. That is not the impression I gained about Liberal Democrats in my full eight years in Parliament, so it is great to hear that and I look forward to his speech. He has talked about making some technical amendments, so the question for the hon. Gentleman when he stands up to speak on behalf of his party tonight is, “will they or won’t they?” Will the Lib Dems support the rights of British victims by voting with us, or will they sit on the fence as they often do and hedge their bets?

The UK’s reputation in Europe is also put very much at risk by this approach. Over the years, we have built up a strong reputation as good negotiators, using our influence in a positive way—for the UK in Europe, but also for Europe more widely. The Home Secretary has not really answered the questions about the support and role of the devolved Administrations. When I was negotiating for the Government, I would be accompanied by members of those devolved Administrations who would be at our side as we discussed and negotiated. What sort of discussions has the Home Secretary had?

I do not have time to go into all the measures today, but it is important that Prüm was mentioned. There were arguments about how it was handled and how the technical and IT administration was carried out, but it will nevertheless introduce important protections. At present, those in this country who, in a global world, employ people from abroad do not know much about where those people have come from, and do not know whether they have criminal records. Proper data exchange can make our country a safer place.

It would be good to know when the House of Commons will vote on the opt-out. As many Members have pointed out, we are within a year of making a final decision, and we shall need to discuss the issue at length. There are barely six weeks before the summer recess, and we shall want to look at the details of the Government’s proposals. I should have thought that, in three years, the Government would have got further than they have. We need to see full details of the opt-in measures; when will we see those? How will the Liberal Democrats vote? That is another important question, which I hope will be answered by the hon. Member for Cambridge. Finally, what is the Home Secretary doing to protect victims?

We are not a teenage debating society. We are talking about real, serious measures that would protect or threaten the British public and other citizens in Europe. We need to ensure that the debate continues beyond today, and that we winkle out of the Government much more detail than they have been prepared to offer on this occasion.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is a very persuasive Member of Parliament, and I am sure that as many MPs as possible will be there.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Tomorrow marks the start of London fashion week. Are the Government willing to work with the British Fashion Council, which is announcing a mapping exercise of manufacturing in the industry to help to support jobs and growth for all of our constituents?

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I will respond to my hon. Friend in relation to the individual case that he has raised, but he starts off by saying that too many decisions by the UK Border Agency are wrong. One of the problems for UKBA is that very often entry clearance officers take decision on the basis of the information in front of them, which may perfectly well be the right decision on the basis of that information, then further information is provided before an appeal is heard. That is an issue that we need to look at.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), I have many constituents who have submitted an in-time application and have not even received an acknowledgement from the UK Border Agency. When my office chases up some months later, it turns out that they have not even been input into the UKBA computer system. Perhaps the Home Secretary can tell us whether this is an attempt by the Home Office to massage figures about the number of applicants and the speed with which it is dealing with them.

[Mrs May]

No such attempt is being made in relation to what the hon. Lady says. She will have heard the answer that I gave. I acknowledged that there are problems in some areas of the operation of the UK Border Agency. That is why we are looking at the UK Border Agency, and why work is being done to improve the processes within it to ensure that we have a system that provides an efficient and effective response to those who are applying.