Criminal Justice Bill

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

2nd reading
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the opening Front-Bench speeches, to which I have listened with interest. It feels like groundhog day, if I may say so, on many counts and fronts.

First and foremost, there is much to welcome in the Bill. I bear the scars of having taken a number of criminal justice measures through the House—with great pleasure and through working with colleagues, including some Back-Bench colleagues who served with me in government. I think we can all reflect on how important it is that this criminal justice legislation strikes a fundamental balance between protecting civil liberties; supporting victims wholeheartedly in everything that we do as legislators; preventing crime, which must be absolutely front and centre of what it does; and punishing offenders.

This is a point of reflection. We in this House have discussed all those themes in separate debates, urgent questions and statements over a number of weeks. When it comes to punishing offenders, I know that the Lord Chancellor has, from the Dispatch Box, tried to address the issues to do with prison spaces. At the same time, we have been having conversations about preventing crime and supporting victims. Those are all personal and human aspects on which we must get the balance right.

I cannot emphasise this enough: we need to bring in and operationalise practical measures that deliver the desired effects and outcomes. In the debate thus far, we have not fully reflected on what it means to put into practice the delivery of such measures—what it means for resourcing, policing, prison spaces, the use of stop and search, and, importantly, how we put victims front and centre of everything we do. We must also demonstrate why those desired impacts are needed above and beyond what is already in place. We have good measures in place already, but now we have to reflect on them and go over and beyond, in the light of some of the points that have been made in the debate. I will come to many of those points.

I know that, while the Bill is going through Parliament, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will have to brace himself for the significant amount of lobbying that will come his way from inside and outside the House. I reflect on that because a great deal of experience that will come his way, and those important discussions will be moments for him to reflect on the practicalities not just of what goes in the Bill, but of its delivery. I thank him for the conversations that we have had in the past week. He will build on the many practical suggestions that will come his way.

Before I comment on the measures in the Bill, it is important to reflect on the actions that have been taken in recent years and the difference that they are making. It is too easy to come in and throw the baby out with the bathwater. A lot of good was done in previous Bills. I will pay tribute later to the work to invest in and recruit 20,000 more police officers. That has had an effect not just on the criminal justice system, but on building public confidence in policing—we should never stand still on that. At the end of the day, the public look to us all—certainly to a Conservative Government—to ensure that we have the manpower to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour, which has been mentioned. Importantly, we must give the public confidence that law and order is on their side and will use every pillar and strain every sinew, including police officers and the criminal justice system, to be on their side. Of course, the beating crime plan contained significant details about measures to target hotspots of criminal activity, including many dreadful aspects that have been touched on today, such as antisocial behaviour, homicide and knife crime. For example, the plan included the introduction of violence reduction units and investment in safer streets through the safer streets funds—important measures that must be built on to deliver safety practically and to build confidence in the criminal justice system.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The right hon. Lady talks about having confidence in the criminal justice system. I will park for a moment the reason we are seeing an increase in police numbers: that, obviously, there was a drop previously. Does she agree that one of the biggest problems is the huge backlog in the courts—not as a result of covid; that has exacerbated it, but it was there before—that will take until 2025 to get anywhere near back to previous levels? I have a constituent who was violently attacked in front of her seven-year-old child. It was three years before her court case was taken. The situation leaves the police powerless, as the individual in question can keep breaking his non-molestation order, with no further action taken. It is all very well having the police officers, but does the right hon. Lady have anything to say about the court system?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. We have discussed that issue more broadly in relation to an end-to-end criminal justice system being fit for purpose: working to a sensible timeframe; the police being able to process the cases with the Crown Prosecution Service; and then, obviously, the cases going to court. I am afraid that there is a lot of merit in the whole debate, particularly around sexual violence and rape cases. We have discussed the matter many times and much more can be done.

Good support has been brought in to address violence against women and girls—the rape review has taken place and there has been investment in independent domestic violence advisers—but there are fundamental criminal justice system issues around cases of this nature, including: the time such cases take; the level of attrition; and the retraumatisation of victims, because these cases are absolutely appalling. I have raised this subject in the House many times, including from the Dispatch Box, and have spoken about personal cases that have come to me through constituents. We all have tragic constituency cases, and we have to make sure that we are strong advocates to bring about justice for those victims.

Let me turn to a number of strong measures that are already in place. A great deal of work has taken place to tackle drugs gangs, organised crime and county lines. The Government deserve great credit for that and for their work on the ring of steel. I used to harp on about the fact that we do not grow these drugs in our country—and some are obviously manufactured—but it is vital that we have in place a ring of steel around our ports and airports to make sure that we do absolutely everything we can to stop at source the scourge of terrible chemicals and drugs coming into our country. We should never, ever stop doing that work; and that goes back to the point about the investment required in our ports and in law enforcement.

The violence against women and girls strategy and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 have helped victims of the most horrific crimes, but I will touch on what more can be done. I welcome the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), to her place. I look forward to working with her on these sensitive and difficult issues.

On policing, the Government have enshrined the police covenant in statute, given the police more powers to fight crime and increased prison sentences. That is all part of offender management and making our communities safer.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for his contribution, but I feel I have to pick up on his point about stop and search.

As I know from my own constituency, done badly, stop and search can have a lifetime impact on trust in the police. I know men of my age who can still remember when they were stopped and searched frequently and badly. It absolutely has to be intelligence-led and done respectfully, so that any young person—or any person stopped by the police—knows their rights and is treated properly, because not everybody carries a weapon. There is a point to it when it is well-targeted, but we have to keep monitoring the police so that the number of stop and searches and the number of weapons found are proportional. Across London—I know my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) will find this as well in her constituency—people caught with a weapon will often hide it in the bushes or somewhere else because they know it will be found by stop and search. If it is used badly, it does not work; if it used well, it does have a place in policing. It cannot be got rid of completely, but it must be done respectfully and properly.

Given the current challenge the police are facing, particularly in London, in terms of trust with the community, we need to be really careful. In my constituency, I watch the statistics closely for who is stopped and searched, and the proportion of knives caught. It is important that we all keep an eye on that. We are at a point of disagreement, but I hope we can disagree well on this issue. The tone of the debate has been like the old days— we are actually discussing the matters in the Bill.

I want to focus on a number of issues, starting with that important matter of public trust in policing, which we know is currently a real challenge. We have policing by consent in this country and that is a prize worth fighting for. In my constituency, over a very long period of time, before my election 18 years ago and since, we have seen that lack of trust and challenge played out viscerally at times. Nationally, we had the shocking cases of police officers Wayne Couzens and David Carrick. They were serving officers and continued to be in employment despite previous incidents that were clear red flags.

I strongly commend to the House Baroness Casey’s review into the standards of behaviour and internal culture in the Metropolitan police. It sets out clearly the scale of the problems and is a seminal piece of work, but it will only be a seminal piece of work in reality if it is actually taken on board. I therefore welcome the commitments made by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, to tackle those issues, and his strong acknowledgement of the systemic problems in the force he now leads. The leadership has to come from the top, but it needs to be root and branch from below as well. We need to have confidence that the police can report issues among their colleagues —the duty of candour is an important element. The idea that things are hidden from senior management, or that senior management will not deal with them, needs to be in the bin now. Sir Mark Rowley needs power to his elbow to continue to deliver what he is trying to do. I am very concerned about how we got here and there are still lessons to be learned.

Very many years ago, I became a Home Office Minister. I had responsibility for the vetting and barring service. Building a picture about an individual police officer and vetting is still not being applied to the police. I served as a Home Office Minister for the three years from 2007 until the general election in 2010. Colleagues may remember the Bichard report, published in 2004 after the tragic murder of two young girls in Soham. The importance of recording and aggregating inappropriate and concerning incidents and behaviours carried out by people in professional roles, or indeed anyone, was not being managed well. Someone could commit a crime in one area—or not even commit a crime, but come to the attention of the police force in that area—and then move to a different area and repeat the same actions, and there would not be an overall picture of what that person had done.

As the Minister responsible for the then vetting and barring scheme, since subsumed, alongside the Criminal Records Bureau, into the Disclosure and Barring Service, I helped to shape that picture, focusing particularly on people working in education and health settings and bringing together and changing the rules governing the way in which people were supported. But that picture building also plays a much wider role. I know, having dealt with it in such detail at the time, that if it is used and shared properly, it can prevent opportunities for more serious crimes to be committed.

It is a tragedy and an irony that that type of intelligence gathering, which is now well established in many professions, including education and healthcare, had clearly not been happening in policing. The vetting system alone was different. Someone could be vetted and passed to become a police officer in one area, but in another area the vetting would disbar him or her from that force. Actions could be registered on people’s files and records as employees in one force, and in another force—or, indeed, in the same force—the accumulation of those actions did not lead to those people losing their jobs.

Before Wayne Couzens was convicted of rape and murder, six incidents of indecent exposure were linked to him, and in a previous job he was known as “the rapist” because of how he made women feel. David Carrick’s offences spanned a 17-year period—almost as long as I have been in the House—with reports to the Met first made in 2000. Here we are in 2023, more than 20 years after the tragedies in Soham, and that picture building and intelligence gathering across police forces has still not been happening. There is a great deal to be done to build trust between the public and the police, and it is clear that immediate progress needs to be made on the issues that I have mentioned.

I want to say something about the Home Office’s recent review of police officer dismissals, in particular its recommendation that misconduct hearing panels should be chaired by senior police officers supported by a legally qualified panel member and an independent member. Previously the panel would have been chaired by the legally qualified panel member, supported by the other two members, in order to ensure, rightly, that those chairing misconduct hearings had the appropriate knowledge and skills and were removed from any actual or perceived conflict of interest in the case. I fear that the change in the make-up of the panel threatens public confidence in the transparency and independence of the proceedings.

For example, a police chief or a police and crime commissioner might be required to make a statement immediately following a police incident, something we regularly see on our television screens and read about in the media. After that, the officers involved could be subject to a disciplinary hearing. How could that police chief then chair the panel objectively? There would be a clear conflict of interest.

The Bill creates the right of a chief constable to appeal against a decision made by a misconduct hearing panel. The rationale for that is that police chiefs should have a right to determine whom they employ in their forces. On one level I completely understand that, and, as I say, all power to the elbow of Mark Rowley in wanting to get rid of bad officers in his employment. However, it adds another layer of proceedings—another potentially lengthy and resource-draining element.

Policing is not a regulated profession, which is extraordinary when we think of comparable professions. As the IOPC points out in its response to the Home Office’s review of the process of police officer dismissals,

“Police disciplinary proceedings have their origin in the employer-employee relationship between a constable and their chief officer. However, that relationship has been overlaid incrementally by a statutory regime intended to promote public confidence. As has been noted in various legal judgements, the legislative regime that has resulted is very complicated.”

In regulated professions, the professional body deals with the public interest in fitness to practise issues, which means striking off people from the professional register when that is appropriate, while employers deal with breaches of the contract of employment, which means dismissal or some lesser sanctions. In the absence of a fitness to practise model in the police, a neat solution would be to separate findings relating to misconduct from the sanctioning element. A panel—chaired, I suggest, by an independent member—could find an officer guilty of misconduct and make a recommendation regarding an appropriate sanction, but the police chief would then make the decision to retain or sack that officer on the basis of the independent findings.

We all know that confidence in policing is the foundation of our system and that policing by consent is something we should prize. It is essential for my constituents in Hackney and for people up and down this country that we take concrete steps to address the problems and fix the long-standing systemic issues. I think there is an opportunity to do that in policing. I can see why the police will have lobbied the Government to have the right to chair misconduct proceedings, but I think there is a way of resolving that and keeping the independent oversight while giving police chiefs the right to sack people who have done the wrong thing.

I also want to touch on something I mentioned in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in relation to shoplifting. Shoplifting has increased 25% in the last 12 months alone, with offences under £200 rarely being enforced. I recently visited the Gainsborough Co-op in Shoreditch to talk to the staff there, and I thank them for hosting me. I have also spoken to the trade union USDAW. It was interesting and sobering to talk to the member of staff at the Co-op who is responsible for collecting the information about shoplifting across the Co-op group. A lot of evidence is collected. We have heard examples of people going in and sweeping up food, with the same person often making several visits a day; they know when the security guard is on a break and go in then. They case the joint and steal repetitively. They are also increasingly aggressive, and staff tell me that they now go behind the tills more often.

The staff now wear cameras to try to record video evidence. They collect video evidence and they collect evidence from staff, who have to take time out of their duties to report it. They tell me that they are assiduous in doing that because they see the importance of trying to tackle the issue. The Co-op then pulls together that data—USDAW tells me that it is the same for other stores—and presents it to the police en masse to try to get a conviction, yet so little is taken up. A police officer will not necessarily attend an individual incident. I understand the pressures on the police in my borough, where there are lots of things going on. There always has to be a priority, but shoplifting is so often down the list of priorities that it is a real tragedy for those working in those shops.

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady and I see eye to eye on quite a few of the points that have been raised today. She mentioned a Co-op store, which is part of a wider group that clearly has a few more resources than independent retailers do. Does she agree that we really need to change not just the mindset in policing but the law to ensure that all crimes are treated equally, particularly when it comes to shop crime and its impact on retailers?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The right hon. Lady and I are perhaps surprised to find ourselves in such agreement, but absolutely. I will finish highlighting what the Co-op does, because I think it plays into what happens in smaller stores.

The staff pull together enough information to make it evidentially strong enough to take through the prosecution service and into court, but even then they often struggle to get any interest—and of course, if the stores clamp down in one area by putting more security into a shop where there has been a particular issue, the criminals just move to the next property. We have to deal with this problem area-wide, which is why it needs to be a police matter and not just dealt with store by store. Crucially, as the right hon. Lady says, if the Co-op, Tesco or Sainsbury’s clamps down on a particular store or stores in an area, other shops are left with less support. They are often small corner shops with a lone shopkeeper, and the fear for them is palpable. It is really worrying. If they know that the police are not going to come, they just have to back off and their goods are stolen.

The Co-op that I visited has lost £155,000-worth of goods in the first six months of this year. For a small shop, that is the difference between existing and not. We rely on those local shops, and in lockdown we needed their support. Now we need to support them, and this needs to be a higher priority for the police. The Government could also be doing more. This is something that my own party is keen to look at. I am a Labour and Co-op Member of Parliament, so I am particularly keen to see this dealt with. I was struck as I talked to the staff in store by how helpless they feel when someone pretty much jumps across the till to take cigarettes and booze. They have to hide things, and they have to stock dummy products, which is inconvenient for customers. Of course, customers sometimes go into one of these shops and find that the goods they want to buy are not there because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) said, the shop has just had a large-volume raid.

Shoplifting needs to be taken much more seriously. Nobody should go to work and expect to be attacked. Everyone I spoke to had suffered an incident of shoplifting. Even if they stepped back and were not violently attacked, it is still very damaging psychologically. No wonder we see such turnover among shop workers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Like her, I have spoken to shopkeepers and it is heartening that they want to do a good job. They said the problem is that, after a shoplifting incident, not only do they go home with it in their head but they have to take time out to record it all. This is what one said to me, and it was really heartfelt: “It stops me doing what I’m here to do, which is to help customers.” He was so proud of his job, and he wanted to help customers. Nobody should be forced not to do their job well. Frankly, there is a real issue here, and there needs to be a strong signal that there will be action on the ground, with the police working with the retailers. The big retailers can help, but action needs to be area-wide. We need to take a completely different approach to shoplifting.

I commend the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall on knife crime. She highlighted the utter tragedy that she and I have experienced too often. It is not right that our young people feel unsafe roaming the streets. They should have the right to roam, but instead they and their parents are constantly worrying about knives on the streets.

Just banning zombie knives is not enough, because people will hide them. As with county lines, people will find a way. An 11-year-old in my constituency was recently asked to hide a gun, and when the gun went missing—it was taken from him—he had to pay back the person who had asked him to look after it. That is a classic example of grooming, and the same thing will happen with knives, which are not always held by the criminals themselves. Those who want to get hold of a dangerous weapon can do so all too easily, even if it is banned in law. That alone is not enough for somebody who is determined to do this.

We need to take a much more holistic public health approach to knife crime. I was in the Home Office when my party was last in government. The right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and I are proud of our service in the Home Office, which is a great Department to be in, but it is also frustrating. At that time, we were trying to work with accident and emergency departments to get the data so that we could track what was happening, to make sure we had a more holistic approach. This is not just a crime issue; it is about making sure we are helping and diverting young people, who are often drawn into this activity not because they want to be but because, for young people living in certain areas, it is safer to be part of a gang than to step away. It is hard to resist that pressure at times, and those innocent young victims need as much support as other victims.

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We can all reflect on where other parts of the state drop the ball on this issue, for young people in particular. Tragically, as she will know from her constituency—I have spent a lot of time with families in central London who are grieving because they have lost their children, their nieces or their nephews—these children get trapped into bonded labour, basically. They are treated like slaves. Somewhere along their journey the state, whether it is social services or the Department for Education, has failed. These kids may have been kicked out of school. That is where we need early intervention to stop the rot setting in.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I absolutely agree on that, and we need resourcing for that early intervention. Something we look at on the Public Accounts Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, is what I call “cost shunting”. A classic example of that would be where mental health services get cut and the police end up picking up mental health patients and having to divert resources there. We could have early intervention to support young people so that they are not caught up in this. I am not blaming young people, as they themselves are not a problem—the young people in my constituency are amazing and are going to be great leaders of the future—but some of them, sadly, get sucked into this. That little bit of money going in early can prevent a lot of challenge for young people.

Many years ago, a police chief in Lambeth, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), did a bit of work to analyse the tragic knife crimes of that year and a clear pattern of victims emerged, one that often related to their being in care and to challenges in the education system. I give credit to Hackney’s gangs intervention unit, which finds the young people who are at risk of getting involved or who are involved. It then finds a way to divert them out of that path, through rehousing and education, and supports the family in doing that. This is a real challenge and so many parents want to talk to me about it. They do not want a uniformed police officer coming to the door if they know that there is a drug or gang issue in their area, because they do not want the young person in their family, often their son or daughter, to be targeted. We can talk about that issue.

Frankly, it will be cheaper for the Home Office to put money into early intervention than deal with the aftermath—the victims, the deaths and, later, the prison system, which goes to the Ministry of Justice budget. We need to break the government spending silos, looking across them with a mission statement as the leader of the Labour party has suggested. No longer can we look at individual silos; we need to find a way of tackling these wicked issues.

On fraud, the PAC has been looking at the issue for some time, and it is a failure of the system that we have such a poor response to it. The PAC looked at fraud in 2017 and again this year. Outlawing SIM farms is all very well, but victims continue to be let down. This is like the tip of an iceberg; it is as though the Government had to put something about fraud in the Bill so they went for SIM farms. Is that going to solve anything, given that most of the crime is overseas? When we looked at this again this year, the Committee concluded that fraud is

“everyone’s problem but no one’s priority”.

The Bill backs up that premise. Some 41% of all crimes currently committed are frauds; we are talking about 3.8 million instances of actual or attempted fraud in the year to June of last year. Such little progress has been made in the past year, with fraud increasing and victims paying the price. The cost of fraud to individuals cumulatively is £4.7 billion. We all want to boost the economy, so if we stop fraud, we could have £4.7 billion being spent in our economy. I am not being flippant, because this has a huge impact on the individuals who get hit, sometimes to the tune of several thousand pounds. For many of my constituents, even £50 or £100 is enough to tip them over the edge in a month, so this is a really big concern. Of course, this is about not just financial fraud, but other fraud.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier). She has made some important points, some of which I will come on to shortly. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his statement. As we go through the details of the announcements and the delights of the OBR forecast, there will be much discussion in the forthcoming debates. I always take the view that Budgets and fiscal events, some of which I have been part of in the past, need to address three crucial challenges: whether they support the economic freedom of our constituents; whether they empower businesses and enterprise to create economic growth, as it is the private sector, not the state, that grows the economy—I will come on to state spending shortly; and whether they manage the public finances in a sound and sustainable way.

I suspect that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, like me are old enough to remember the great Conservative Budgets from the 1980s delivered by Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson—you do not need to agree with me on that right now. They set the benchmarks that any Chancellor, especially a Conservative one, should look to and follow to get the right balance of creating economic growth and sustaining the public finances in a suitable, sustainable and measured way. It should always be the mission of a Conservative Government to ensure that people can keep more of what they earn; it is right that the Chancellor used that statement a number of times and spoke about the fiscal measures he is introducing to ensure that that happens.

Of course, businesses and people spend their money far more effectively, efficiently and productively than the state, which is why low-tax economies are also naturally the fastest growing ones. A lower tax burden would mean more money in the pockets of our constituents to provide for themselves and their families. Having listened to speeches made by those on the Opposition Benches, it is fair to say that we would all agree that we want all our constituents to be well-off, financially and economically, for their families and their futures. A lower tax burden would also mean more money available to businesses to invest and expand. The Chancellor touched on some measures, and I shall do so shortly, on jobs and higher salaries. Naturally, this leads to more resources for economic growth. That is also why I fundamentally believe the Government should look to bring the levels of personal taxation down. The Chancellor mentioned that today, but I might suggest a few cheeky measures to say what more we can do on that, as more can be done.

Today’s autumn statement marks—these might actually be the words of the Chancellor—a major moment when the Government and the country change gear and focus on how to drive growth in the decade ahead with the a package of tax measures, while seeking to ensure that inflation continues to fall. That is absolutely right. There are different ways in which it can be achieved, and the Chancellor has outlined the ways in which he wants to make sure that it happens.

On the measures announced today, naturally I support cutting the main rate of national insurance contributions—the infamous NICs—from 12% to 10%. It was refreshing to not only address but go as far as abolish class 2 contributions for the self-employed. That will have implications and the devil is in the detail, as touched on by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, including issues of interoperability, such as how that will relate to and engage with the pensions system, technical measures and delivery. That is a fact of life. I do not want to be pointed, but HMRC and DWP use two different systems that are not always interoperable; I am a former DWP Minister and a former Treasury Minister, so I have seen that in action. I urge the Government to pay attention to the delivery of that measure, and I have no doubt that the Public Accounts Committee will be watching very closely as well.

On reducing the tax burden, my colleagues on the Treasury Bench will expect me to say that I maintain, fundamentally, that we can do more to freeze income tax levels. I know Treasury Ministers have heard me and indulged me on that subject before. Back in 2010, the measures around the tax-free threshold and increasing the higher rate threshold were a significant way to help families directly, in a sustainable way. I point to that example because it did not lead to a fall in inflation. Of course, the inflationary measures we see now—external measures, such as the war in Ukraine and energy prices—are different, but I will continue to lobby the Government relentlessly because I want to see a shift in tax-free and higher rate allowances.

That is important in the context set out by the OBR today, which states:

“Tax changes in this Autumn Statement reduce the tax burden by 0.7 per cent of GDP but it still rises in every year to a post-war high of 37.7 per cent of GDP by 2028-29. Income tax increases explain most of the increase in this forecast, rising from 10.2 per cent of GDP this year, to 11.3 per cent in 2028-29”.

Those increases are driven by, dare I say it, the threshold freezes in income tax rates and the nominal earnings growth that will come from that. The implications are self-evident: more of our constituents will pay more income tax, there is the infamous fiscal drag and more people will move into higher rate bands, so ultimately 400,000 more people will pay the additional rate.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that will create a burden for those people who will then have to complete a tax return? In addition, there will be an impact on child benefit, so there is a double whammy once people hit the higher threshold, if they have children.

[Priti Patel]

The right hon. Lady is correct and makes an important point. I do not want to be boxing the ears of my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench today, which is their day, but I sound like a broken record on this subject. I would go for complete streamlining and simplification of the tax system, even on NI, where I would like to see measures such as the merger of income tax and NI. I would love to see a simple system where we do not have the burdens of bureaucracy. Even when we spoke about full expensing in the Budget, the business and regulatory implications are pretty vast. The childcare measures are very good and encouraging, but from, a personal perspective, even more complexities are being introduced to the system and we, as Conservatives, could do much more to streamline that.

Global Migration Challenge

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

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

The permanent secretary at the Home Office concluded that he could not tell whether this was value for money, but on every number and every question of cost, the Home Secretary has failed to answer. Can she answer the point made by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)? If this deters certain people from crossing, surely the people traffickers and smugglers will just load the dinghies up with women and children and make sure that they get their money somehow; it does not break the business model.

[Priti Patel]

I am sorry, but I want to dispute that point. It is our moral responsibility and duty not to just wring our hands and let the people-smugglers carry on trading in human misery. We have a responsibility to find solutions. It is disappointing, as I have repeatedly said, that the Opposition just sit on the sidelines carping and playing political games. The message to the British people is obviously that they just want uncontrolled immigration, they do not have a solution to this problem, and they are not prepared to work with the Government to stop this awful and evil trade of people smuggling.

Refugees from Ukraine

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I have always made it abundantly clear in the House that our approach is always under review —it is under review for a range of issues, for example, as the situation changes or the security threat level changes. The hon. Lady has just asked why we cannot just let people through. There is a range of advice that I have to consider. Having considered all the advice and looked at the approach we can take, my priority has been to streamline the approach. Clearly, it is not appropriate to keep sending people who do not necessarily need to go to visa application centres to those centres. We can now prioritise those who are more vulnerable and do not have documentation, and we want to focus on those individuals. The final point to make is that not only are we as a country generous in our approach to people fleeing persecution, but this is how the Government’s approach has always been, in terms of safe routes, legal routes, Afghan refugees and British nationals overseas who have come to the UK. That has been at the heart of the Government’s work. For every crisis that takes place in the world there is no single solution. We have to develop bespoke solutions, which is what we have done.

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

As one of the top six customers of the Home Office on immigration issues, I have seen how this situation underlines the chaos in the Home Office’s immigration system. It is really struggling to keep up with the basics and when dealing with this surge it has understandably crumbled under the pressure. I am concerned that we have been waiting for all these days. We know that security checks need to take place, but what security risk is there from 90-year-old women, from people in their 60s, from mothers and small children? Has the right hon. Lady not given some thought to progressing them through faster and doing more checks on them here in the UK?

[Priti Patel]

Yes, and that is exactly what we have been doing.

Windrush Lessons Learned Review

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend speaks with experience of process, which is a point that has been touched on already. There are many lessons to be learned, but on process there are also issues with the management of case files, technology, record keeping, data retention—you name it. These are long-term, long-standing issues that the Home Office needs to grip and are part of wider changes to the machinery of government that we are looking at.

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

The Home Secretary said in her statement: “If we find a problem, I will fix it.” Let me commend to her the work of my constituent Chrisann Jarrett and We Belong, young people who came to this country, some when they were as young as two. They are now on the long road to citizenship—10 years—and every three years have to pay over £2,500 in fees. These are young people who will become British citizens, but every hurdle is being put in their way. They are passionate about this country and are not going to live anywhere else. The Home Secretary could save herself resources and staff time, and support those young people, if she were to look at this. I am sure that Chrisann and We Belong would be willing to engage with her Department.

[Priti Patel]

I look forward to that engagement if it is something we can facilitate.

Windrush Lessons Learned Review

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comment. This review gives voice to people from the Windrush generation, who, of course, not only came to the UK legally, but were part of our country. They contributed to our country, our economy and our public services in an unprecedented way.

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

The Home Secretary has said, “We will continue to do everything possible to ensure that the Home Office protects, supports and listens to every single part of the community it serves.” I commend the work of Councillor Carole Williams in Hackney, who is doing amazing work, pulling together the community and setting a better model than the Home Office’s for how that engagement could work.

I also want to ask the Home Secretary about the other 160,000 Commonwealth citizens in this situation, which is something that the Public Accounts Committee raised. While she is on her feet, will she also tell us what she is doing about people with no recourse to public funds who are part of the community she serves, who will be facing very difficult circumstances if they are unable to work because of covid-19?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady raises a number of points. First, I thank everyone who is involved, and has been involved, in many of the outreach groups and the events that have taken place across the country. I have mentioned the stakeholder group in particular, which is something that I set up. I have spent a lot of time with volunteers and community activists, and their work has been remarkable and should be commended. There is much more that we need to do on that basis, and that equally applies to members of other Commonwealth countries. This report is very clear about that, and I am very clear about that as well. I said in my statement that we have not done enough yet to reach out to everyone, and that there is a lot of work to do in reaching out to other individuals and communities. I have asked other colleagues and Members of this House to work with us and their communities so that we can ensure that we reach the people who need help and support. That goes exactly to the point about recourse to public funds. I spoke about assistance with benefit claims and things of that nature. Again, we need to identify those individuals, and there is more we can do collectively.

The hon. Lady touched on the current crisis with covid-19 and how we will continue to do these things. That is a fair challenge to us all, because we will not be able to hold events in the way we had planned to. Much more work will now take place through media campaigns and our casework approach, but also through one-on-one communications. I would like the individuals she mentioned in her constituency, and other individuals who are working at the grassroots, to get in touch with me and my office. We will absolutely work with them to create a network locally.

Points-based Immigration System

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

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

The Home Secretary has said that additional points will be awarded for occupations that struggle to fill vacancies. In the tech sector, jobs are often lower paid at the start and ill-defined—they do not actually have a job title. So how will she ensure that the MAC recognises those emerging jobs and can act in real time?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is right; our economy and labour market are changing, thanks to technology and emerging skills that may not even be reflected in the discussion and debate that we are having today. That is why we will be looking to bring in, from next year, a tradeable points system, which recognises not only talent and skills, but the role the MAC has to play in assessing the labour market. This is fundamentally changing the way in which we look at the labour market and emerging sectors, whether in new technology or other sectors, where we know we will need to surge people and their skills. Obviously, that work will take place with the MAC.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and of course she will know that the hostile environment, as she called it, dates back to previous Governments. The point about the points-based system is of course that we want a simpler, faster, firmer, better system—one that fulfils our promises to the British people, where we seize that once-in-a-generation opportunity to take back control of our borders and end free movement, which I appreciate Opposition Members simply do not want. We will restore democratic control of our immigration, which is effectively what the British people voted for.

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

It is important to remember that it was the Labour Government who introduced a points-based system. It is important to remember, too, that many of the workers we need in this country cannot come in under the immigration cap of £30,000. The Home Secretary has looked at that for some professions, but will she widen it to ensure we get the workers we need?

[Priti Patel]

Immigration legislation will come before the House in due course. With regard to the labour market and the skills this country needs, decisions on the points-based system will be based on the needs and skills that this country requires. That is incredibly important, so that no Member is deceived under that. It recognises the fact that we need good people with the skills our economy needs, which will enable and facilitate growth in our economy. We want to encourage the brightest and the best to come to this country not just from the EU, but from outside the EU.

Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Debate between Meg Hillier and Priti Patel

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I will look into those cases. Of course we have the exceptional payments scheme, which should stop anybody falling through—such people should receive those payments.

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

I was interested to read the updated impact assessment, which reduces the assumption that there will be 15,000 claims to 11,500 claims. Will the Home Secretary explain why that is the case and whether the Bill will cover the 160,000 Commonwealth citizens who could be affected, to which the Public Accounts Committee drew attention last year?

[Priti Patel]

The numbers were reduced in the impact assessment due to the fewer-than-anticipated claims thus far. I will come on to Commonwealth citizens because, of course, this is not specific to Caribbean nationals.

Even though time has elapsed since individuals may have effectively been caught up in the Windrush issue—experiencing hardship, losing their job and, in some cases, also losing their home—I will, as I said to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), look into any specific cases that hon. Members would like to raise with me. Our changes may help some people to qualify for a potentially higher award, particularly where it relates to the loss of employment.

“Windrush” has been used to describe what happened to a specific group, but that term and this scheme are not limited to those of Caribbean nationality. The scheme, of course, is open to anyone of any nationality who arrived and settled in the UK before the end of 1988, and to anyone from a Commonwealth country who arrived and settled in the UK before 1973. The scheme is also open to the children and grandchildren of Commonwealth citizens who arrived and settled before 1973, and to other close family members of such a person who may have been affected. In the cases of those who sadly passed away before compensation could be paid, a claim can be made by their estate.