Tier 5 Religious Worker Visas

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ged Killen]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I absolutely agree. Another senseless decision seems to be based once again on the ideology of the Conservative party, rather than on any evidence. The Catholic Church in Scotland is in no doubt whatever that the changes will mean fewer priests will be able to come to Scotland to support local parishes. Perhaps the Minister can tell us, if he is aware, what assessment has been made of the likely impact of the changes. How many people have been refused under the new system who would have been granted a visa under the old one? Is the Home Office aware of how many other people are likely to be refused entry at a later date?

We all have casework that demonstrates how often the Home Office gets decisions wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) raised in a debate in this place just a few weeks ago concerns revealed in the Financial Times that the Home Office is using algorithms to process visa applications. Many of my constituents have had applications inexplicably refused, usually because of Home Office errors, which were later overturned following an intervention from my office. As the hon. Member for Glasgow East said earlier, we do not want to get into the wider debate, but I will mention the recent example of my constituent Sabir Zazai, the chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council. He was being honoured by Glasgow University for 20 years of remarkable contribution to civil society, but his father almost missed out on going to the graduation ceremony, where he was to receive his honorary doctorate, because he was refused a visit visa. That is exactly the type of case that speaks to the heart of the issue that we are talking about today, although we are talking about a different tier of visas.

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Will the hon. Gentleman speak to the actual motion?

[Ged Killen]

I apologise, Mr Gapes, but it does speak to the wider issue where mistakes are made all the time. We already have an under-resourced Home Office, which is why we get so many mistakes, making decisions that are not based on any logic, evidence or fairness, but on ideology, and often getting the decisions wrong and causing enormous hurt to individuals and families. In this case we are talking about what was a relatively straightforward process for ministers of religion to come to this country and we are making it needlessly more complicated, which will inevitably lead to more incorrect decisions and will have a huge impact on local parishes up and down the country.

We are left with the question of why we are doing this. What problem are the Government attempting to fix? We know the problems they will create: parishes in constituencies such as Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be unable to maintain the high level of service that they offer in communities that often badly need it. Coffee mornings, youth clubs, bingo nights, food banks and counselling services are all compromised by the changes. I ask the Minister to convey to the Immigration Minister the concerns raised today, and I ask them to seriously reconsider the decision.

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[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I am sitting here as a Catholic utterly stunned by what the hon. Gentleman suggests. He is here in Westminster Hall suggesting that the Catholic Church should change its policies because of what he perceives to be an issue and because of the actions of the Government. Honestly?

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. I know it is tempting to have a wider debate, but will Members, including Mr Howell, focus on the motion before us?

[John Howell]

Thank you, Mr Gapes. To respond briefly, I was not suggesting that; I was leaving it to the Catholic Church to decide. As I said, we can debate that issue on a separate occasion, but I think my point is a valid one.

I made inquiries in the Anglican Church about whether it has this problem. The answer was no, it does not have this problem, for a number of reasons. First, there is a supply of Anglican women priests, so the supply issue is taken care of. Secondly, Anglican ministries are organised increasingly in teams, so someone is always around; because all the members of the team do not take their holiday at the same time, someone in the team is always available to cover for others in the ministry. It is important to bear that in mind.

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[Mr Hurd]

My understanding of the situation is that, in large part because the Government recognise the importance and value of the contributions to our religious institutions made by people from overseas, we have three separate visa routes in to try to facilitate that process. The changes made in January 2019 require individuals seeking to enter the UK as a minister of religion to use tier 2, demonstrating their command of the English language. To be clear, tier 2 is for religious leaders such as priests, imams, rabbis, missionaries and members of religious orders taking employment or a role within a faith-based community. Those applicants can come for up to three years, with an option to extend for up to six years, and possible indefinite leave to remain after five years’ continuous—[Interruption.]

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Mr Hurd]

With respect, Mr Gapes, I have been asked to clarify what the policy is and I am endeavouring to do that.

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[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. I would be grateful if hon. Members did not all shout out at once but allowed the Minister to continue his speech. If Members wish to intervene, can they please do so without making too much noise?

[Mr Hurd]

I am happy to take an intervention from the hon. Member for Glasgow East.

Places of Worship: Security Funding

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the issue of closed groups on social media—the more private groups—is being taken seriously, and is being looked at. He also asked about intelligence. As he will know, the gathering of intelligence on potential terrorist activities is led by Counter Terrorism Policing, a national policing command working with police forces across the country, together with the domestic Security Service. Its budget has been increased significantly over the last three to four years, and it remains an absolute priority to ensure that it has all the resources that it needs to gather that intelligence.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Change UK)]

The London Borough of Redbridge has one of the most diverse communities in the country, with gurdwaras, Hindu temples, mosques, Buddhist viharas and churches of all kinds. We also have a very active faith forum. Will the Home Secretary encourage his officials to do more to pursue a policy of interfaith dialogue and co-operation because, ultimately, it is through understanding and co-operation that we will deal with these problems?

[Sajid Javid]

I strongly agree. It is important to point out the work the hon. Gentleman does as the representative of the local community through the faith forum, and the work of organisations that both my Department and my former Department, the Communities Department, have supported. In my Department, the Building a Stronger Britain Together programme supports over 50 different projects across the country, many of which focus on promoting interfaith dialogue, which is incredibly important to stop hate crimes in future.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

That makes me the lucky recipient, as I am following my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb).

Plainly, how we deal with Hezbollah has been matter of careful consideration for a long time. I do not think that anyone is in any doubt that the previous position—this differentiation between the military and the political wing—was, as has been made crystal clear by a number of contributions here, a piece of constructive ambiguity. It was exactly that. There were, of course, reasons why the Government created that constructive ambiguity. Those considerations that, until now, have dictated the scale of proscription of Hezbollah should not be lost as we go forward.

Hezbollah is, of course, an important part of the Government coalition in the Lebanon. I think that it provides 13 out of the 68 Members of Parliament in the governing coalition. There are important development objectives, particularly in the south of Lebanon where Hezbollah has the core of its support from the poorer Shi’a communities in the Lebanon. Many of those development projects will be delivered with the assistance of the local authorities and the local councils that are elected there. It will be very difficult for officials from the Department for International Development to deliver those projects in the way that they have been if they suddenly find that they have to identify which local officials are flying a Hezbollah badge to get elected, which is largely necessary in that part of Lebanon given Hezbollah’s political popularity—that is the case whether we like it or not. Our aid programme to that part of Lebanon is extremely important. In particular, the assistance that we have given to Lebanon in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis means that it would possibly be damaging to British interests if we allowed this proscription to affect the effective delivery of that assistance.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

The argument that we should not proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety, to help development projects in Lebanon seems a little bit tenuous. Is the hon. Gentleman arguing that to maintain those development projects in Lebanon, we have to allow an organisation to parade on the streets of our capital city with its terrorist symbol of a gun and to intimidate and threaten the Jewish community and others in our country?

[Crispin Blunt]

No, of course not. I am saying that the considerations that will have led to the United Kingdom’s policy until now—until we make this change tonight—ought to be taken into account. Some of the practical implications of trying to deliver much-needed development assistance, particularly in southern Lebanon to assist with the tidal wave of refugees that have come into Lebanon, displaced by the Syrian crisis, will cause complexity in the delivery of those aid programmes. We need to take that into consideration and we have to work out how we are going to do so. It has nothing to do with waving flags in the United Kingdom. All I am saying is that there were reasons for our policy until today, and I would not want those reasons to be lost in this consideration. We want to make sure that we do not cripple the co-operative schemes where they exist. I have already referred to the programmes in the south of the country and the municipalities that will contain people elected under the Hezbollah party label.

Of course, the stability of Lebanon is also an extremely important consideration. Anyone who pretends that they understand the politics of Lebanon will almost immediately be demonstrated not to understand it. It is immensely difficult to get under the surface of this. Some of that complexity is known to me from the visits I have made to Lebanon. Perhaps the most impressive one was in 2006, immediately in the wake of the Israeli attack on Lebanon and the destruction of much of its infrastructure. The driver who was assigned to me and two other parliamentary colleagues at the time was a Hezbollah supporter, but his drink of choice was vodka and his occupation of choice was clubbing. That does go to suggest that it is not quite the same religiously motivated organisation all the way through.

Hezbollah has been seen by the Lebanese Shi’a population as being their most effective representative. The history of terrorism that has been associated with it means that we are going to pass this measure. However, we have to engage with the practical reality that Hezbollah does have at the moment, regrettable though that may be, a very significant amount of the popular support in Lebanon. We are going to continue to need to find a way to make sure that that popular support is engaged in the stability of Lebanon, which is also a key British interest.

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[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

I took part briefly in the debate in January a year ago, which was secured by my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan). It was very clear at that time that the Government were uncomfortable with the existing position. The Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, had come out very strongly to call for a total ban on Hezbollah—not just the military, but the political wing—following the flags on demonstrations in the centre of London and the slogans that were chanted which were clearly threatening and intimidatory towards British citizens. It seems to me astonishing that the Labour Front Bench is unable to recognise and support the clear call by the Mayor of our capital city that there should be a total ban on Hezbollah.

When we had a Labour Government in this country, we were tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. It may be that today we are soft on terrorism and soft on the causes of terrorism. One of the causes of terrorism is that we do not confront and challenge the ideologies that drive it. Whether it is terrorism that comes out of hatred of other communities in the United Kingdom or whether it comes out of a warped distortion of a faith, there are, globally, different terrorist organisations and they have to be challenged, confronted and dealt with. People in this country, as well as in other countries, have to be protected. We are facing a real challenge if we do not recognise the need to have tough but fair security measures for our community as a whole. In Britain today, there are people who are afraid because we are allowing terrorist organisations and their supporters to parade, threaten and challenge.

We need to be very clear that the decision we take tonight has to be followed up by action to enforce what we are about to agree. It is no good Parliament legislating and then not enforcing it. The message has to go out to the Metropolitan police and it has to go out to local authorities. It has to go out to different institutions in our country that there is no place for terrorists, terrorist apologists or terrorist organisations in UK society.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I want to make some progress.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Sajid Javid]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but then I will make some progress.

[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State. Will he take this opportunity to condemn the leaflet put out by Vote Leave during the campaign, saying that 75 million Turks would be coming into our country over the next few years?

[Sajid Javid]

That particular information was completely incorrect. People who were members of Vote Leave at the time have also spoken against that leaflet. We do not want to rerun the debate, but I am happy to say that of course that information was wrong.

I referred to the report and advice from the independent Migration Advisory Committee. The MAC looked in detail at the impact of European migration on the UK’s economy and society and produced recommendations based on its analysis.

The White Paper was also informed by my own discussions with right hon. and hon. Members, as well as with businesses and civil society groups up and down the country. The White Paper outlined our intention to build a new immigration system founded on the principle that entry to the UK should be on the basis of skill rather than of nationality, and that the existing automatic preference for EU citizens will end. Alongside that, I introduced the Immigration Bill. The Bill is a key step to ending free movement once and for all. For the first time in more than 40 years, we will have full control over our borders; the decisions over who comes to the UK will be firmly in our hands. We will ensure that all people coming into this country will need to have permission to do so.

But control over immigration does not mean closing our door or turning our back on immigration, far from it. Our country is far stronger because of immigration: it is stronger economically, culturally and socially. It is stronger in every way because of immigration, and I am determined to continue to have an immigration system that welcomes the very best talent from across the world, helping us to build an open, welcoming and outward looking post-Brexit Britain.

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[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for his remarks. This is probably the most important debate that the House of Commons will engage in in this generation. It is easy to get lost in the parliamentary tactics and the technocratic detail, but this is actually a debate about the future of this country and what sort of Britain we want to be. It has become an excessively polarised debate, particularly in recent weeks, so I want to stress, for Opposition Members, that we are committed to honouring the referendum vote and, more than that, that we understand what moved so many millions of our fellow citizens to vote for Brexit. I just make the point that we should not be excessively polarised.

[Mike Gapes]

My right hon. Friend says that we are committed to honouring the referendum vote. Does she mean that we will support Brexit even if it damages the very communities that we as Labour Members of Parliament represent?

[Ms Abbott]

I would like to thank my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention. Actually, the position of the Labour party was set out in the manifesto on which both he and I campaigned, and we are committed to a jobs-first Brexit that will not harm our economy. I repeat: we want to honour the referendum vote.

I remind the House that I will not take lectures from the Home Secretary on the iniquities of the EU. I have an immaculate record of voting against all measures of further EU integration. In fact, I remember very clearly voting against the vital clauses in the Maastricht treaty. The reason why I remember it is that at that time both Front Benches were in support of the Maastricht treaty, and those of us who wanted to vote against it had to stay up to the middle of the night to cast our votes, so I remember it very clearly. He should not lecture this side on what is problematic about the EU.

We campaigned in the referendum on remain and reform, and we do not resile from the fact that there are aspects of the EU that needed reform. Opposition Members do not want to see an excessively polarised debate. However, we are now resuming the debate after the longest parliamentary interruption in modern times, and Government Members ought to be a little embarrassed about this long interregnum in the debate and the fact that, even at this late stage, it seems that they will have great difficulty in getting their deal through.

I will deal with the issues that the Home Secretary has raised, but first I want to deal with issues of safety and security, because there is an argument that there is no more important a responsibility for the Government of the day than securing the safety and security of the United Kingdom. The Home Secretary will be aware that just this week two former MI6 and defence chiefs went on the record urging Conservative MPs to vote against this deal because it threatens national security. I put it to the Home Secretary that ex-heads of MI6 and ex-defence chiefs might know a little bit more about security than the Home Secretary or even myself.

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[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Few debates in this House have ever had such an impact on the people of Liverpool Wavertree and on the country as the one we are conducting this week. Every home, every business and every citizen in Liverpool will feel the impact of Brexit. The stakes could not be higher for jobs, the price of our goods, wages, the cost of mortgages, businesses large and small, our economy and our standing in the world. It is hard to see what has changed since the Prime Minister delayed the meaningful vote in such a discourteous fashion before the Christmas recess. The only tangible change is that the hands of the clock have moved ever closer to the Brexit deadline, with the Prime Minister presenting her false choice of her deal or no deal. She should tread carefully.

There are those who wish to see Britain crash out of the EU without a deal in place, as the final act in their anti-EU drama. No responsible Government should even entertain the prospect of a no deal Brexit, and it is beyond belief that that option has not been ruled out, given the uncertainty that it is creating across our country and the billions being spent in preparation for that possibility. We should be crystal clear about what a no-deal Brexit would mean for our constituents and the country, including for our food prices given that 30% of our food supplies come from the European Union. Our gas and electricity prices would also increase disproportionately, having an impact on the poorest and most vulnerable, as about 5% of our electricity and as much as 12% of our gas is imported from the EU.

With no alternative currently in place, our constituents will no longer be covered by the European health insurance card, and will need to pay for health insurance when they go abroad. The manufacturing sector that I represent in my constituency will be hard hit, with firms relying on just-in-time production unable to properly guarantee their production. I have heard from many of my constituents, including Rob, the owner of a small chemicals business, who would struggle to source raw materials or maintain the same level of sales. He is an employer, and many of my constituents rely on jobs in his firm.

Worst of all, our public services, including the national health service and social care, would suffer as we would be unable to recruit from countries within the EU. In the Select Committee on Health and Social Care, we heard that there is a real threat to medical supplies. The permanent secretary at the Department for Health and Social Care told us that he was having sleepless nights over the continuation of imports of vital medical supplies, and that the issue was very complex.

In Liverpool, we are proud of our universities, and we have welcomed students and academics from across the EU. Our university leaders tell us that crashing out of the EU is one of the biggest threats to our higher education sector. The Russell Group reported just last week that postgraduate student enrolment from EU countries has already fallen by 9% this academic year, starving our universities of cash. More than 100 universities have warned of an academic, cultural and scientific setback from which it would take decades to recover, because a no-deal Brexit would isolate and hobble Britain’s universities.

Those are the things that we can predict with confidence, but the real threat comes from the unintended consequences—the 1,001 things that we cannot foresee that will have a negative impact on our citizens’ lives. The bottom line is that things will be worse for most of the people we represent. That is the reality that we are contemplating in this debate. Our politics is broken and our system has failed, and neither the Prime Minister’s deal nor the no-deal scenario has the support of a majority in this House. Our Parliament is in a state of gridlock, so how can we break it? The Prime Minister could draw a magical rabbit from the hat—a political masterstroke of some kind—that breaks the logjam and enables Parliament to move ahead beyond the current paralysis. While we live in hope, the chances of that happening appear incredibly slim.

The opposition to the Prime Minister’s deal is about more than the backstop on the Northern Ireland border, critical though that is. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) for analysing the debate that was abruptly brought to a close before Christmas. He found that Members from across the House had many concerns about security, migration, citizens’ rights, and trade and the economy, which was the No. 1 issue. However, the backstop, on which we are told this whole debate rests, came fourth.

[Mike Gapes]

As somebody who was involved in negotiating the Good Friday agreement, I regard the backstop as an essential guarantee of that agreement and of long-term stability in Ireland. Although I disagree with the Government’s position for the reasons that my hon. Friend is setting out, the backstop is not the problem. The problem is with the future framework and other things.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for articulating clearly that, although the nub of the issue has rested on this point, there are actually many other issues. For many colleagues on both sides of the House, the backstop is not the issue that is consuming them. In The Daily Telegraph this morning, an unnamed Minister said that the Prime Minister is likely to lose by 200 votes next week because the situation will not be resolved by addressing the backstop alone. If the vote is lost next Tuesday, a motion of no confidence in this Government should be brought immediately, and we should see whether there is a majority in Parliament for a general election. With fewer than 80 days to go until we are due to leave the EU—around 40 sitting days—time is pressing.

If the vote falls next week, we will break the gridlock only by giving the country a final say with a people’s vote, but that does not mean a rerun of the 2016 referendum. The world is a different place nearly three years on. Some 1.4 million young people who are eligible to vote today were too young to have their say in 2016, and the most recent analysis shows that 72.5% of my constituents now support remaining in the European Union, with 74% of people wanting a people’s vote. Those percentages are hardly surprising, because Liverpool is proudly a European city. We were the European city of culture in 2008—a year that generated an economic impact of £753 million. In just the past five years, European structural and investment funds have provided Liverpool with nearly £200 million, which has allowed us to invest in hundreds of local enterprises and jobs. People understand the enormous benefits that EU membership has afforded us for decades, and it is regrettable that the Government will not even confirm that funds that the European Union has already committed to Liverpool to the tune of millions of pounds will be guaranteed post Brexit.

Young people, whose lives will be most affected by the decisions taken in this place, should be allowed a say on their future. New facts have come to light. The lies of the leave campaign have been exposed, including, as the House heard earlier from the Home Secretary, the leaflets and Facebook advertising that people were bombarded with telling them that millions of people would come here from Turkey. That was just not true. We have heard strong suggestions of Russian influence in our referendum in line with Russia’s desire to disrupt and weaken the western allies, and it is deplorable that we have not yet seen a full and proper criminal investigation. Rather than the unicorns and rainbows that too many of the public were sold, we now have a much clearer sense of what Brexit actually means for our economy, for jobs, for our public services and for businesses, and public opinion has shifted based on the harsh realities rather than the false, shiny promises on the side of a bus or threats of a Turkish invasion.

Let the people have a say with a people’s vote. Let us be open and honest with the country: there is no better Brexit. There will be no Brexit dividend, just Brexit chaos and misery. There is no better deal than the one we have already. On every analysis, Government receipts will be lower than if we had remained in the European Union. Of course, we could choose to spend money differently, but that is not a dividend. The decision will affect us for decades to come, and it is in the national interest and for the sake of the people of Liverpool, Wavertree, who sent me to this Parliament, that I will vote against the Government’s motion next week.

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[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the words of Ian Dury, “Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 2”. I gave the first part of this speech on 6 December, at column 1171. The additional five minutes I have today is its continuation —hon. Members will judge whether it is “What a Waste” or not.

I do not want to focus on foreign affairs, but I begin by pointing out, in response to the Government’s “global Britain” slogan and their assertion that we will be a free and independent country “again”, that we are a free and independent country today. We have had a very successful “global Britain” policy for decades. After all, it was Margaret Thatcher who brought in the European single market, which has been of such benefit to our economy, and the Labour Government of Tony Blair that made such an impact on the development of the European Union out of the European Economic Community we joined in 1973.

I want to say some things about the Labour party, and I want to say some things to the Labour party and to Labour voters and Labour party members all over the country. In 1975, as an undergraduate, I was putting out anti-Common Market leaflets on the Arbury estate in Cambridge the day before my final economics exam. I was campaigning for “Cambridge against the market”. We decided we would not be with the “Get Britain out” campaign because it included the National Front and racists and, of course, the Communist party. Stalinists are always happy to line up with the far right—the red shirts and the brown shirts. The Morning Star is doing the same at this very moment when it supports Brexit—as does that rape cult, the Socialist Workers party.

The Labour party is in a bizarre position, as was confirmed when I intervened on the shadow Home Secretary earlier. We are pursuing a Brexit which, according to a briefing issued by the office of the parliamentary Labour party earlier this week, is a “sensible” Brexit, whatever that is. The reality, as is known all over the country, is that there is no such thing as a “jobs first” Brexit. It is entirely about mitigating the damage.

I have to say that I do not believe any Government would have been able to negotiate anything very different from what the Prime Minister has negotiated with the EU27, because the EU is a rules-based, legally based institution in which the four freedoms are integral. They cannot be cherry-picked. Whether we are talking about a red cake with red cherries or a blue cake with blue cherries, the EU will not allow it. This deal, the backstop and everything else, is an essential part of preserving the integrity of the institutions of the European Union. Why should an organisation that we are proposing to leave give us better terms than it gives its members? That would be unprecedented.

We must therefore face reality. There is no socialist Brexit, there is no “jobs first” Brexit, and there is no better Brexit. The choice that we must face is this. Do we or do we not wish to go into the blindfold Brexit that is being put forward today, whereby we do not know the future terms of the trading relationship? It could be Canadafragilisticexpialidocious, or it could be Norway-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus, but we have no idea. The fact is that once we have passed this motion, if we do—and I am sure that it will go down—we shall be in a very dangerous, uncharted position, in which a right-wing Government in the future could take us into a job-cutting, deflationary or austerity Brexit. That is why I will be voting against it, and voting to stay in the European Union if I can, to revoke article 50 if we get the chance.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

No, I will not—I have to make some progress.

When it comes to external threats, we will be able to have an ambitious partnership on foreign policy, security and defence that will enable both sides to combine efforts for the greatest impact. It allows for ongoing co-operation on other important cross-cutting issues, including countering violent extremism and the spread of infectious diseases.

Of course, there is some further work to be done to ensure that we build on the foundation that this deal provides. This is not about wanting to stay close to the EU and its security arrangements just for the sake of it. We are leaving, and our relationship must change. This is about a hard-headed, pragmatic, evidence-based decision on what is the best security interest of the UK.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can the Home Secretary confirm that because we will not be participating in the PESCO—permanent structured co-operation—arrangements, we will have no seat in the room, no voice and no vote or veto within any of the foreign policy defence and security arrangements; we will not be in the European Defence Agency; and we will not, unless we have a special arrangement, be in the European Defence Fund? What is the point of that in terms of increasing our security?

[Sajid Javid]

I would say gently to the hon. Gentleman that of course when we have left the EU we will not be participating as direct members in those kinds of foreign security tools. We will have our own independent foreign and defence policy, and we will have the ability, if we choose, to align ourselves with the EU. He should also remember, and it is worth recalling in this House, that our security is underpinned across Europe by our membership of NATO, not membership of the European Union. Ultimately, I believe that this deal strikes the right balance on security, and we will keep Britain one of the safest countries in the world.

I turn now to the consequences for security of no deal. An unco-operative no deal would have an impact on protecting the public. There will be no implementation period smoothing our transition into these new arrangements. The UK would have to stop using EU security tools and data platforms from March next year. There will be unhelpful implications for our law enforcement agencies and border guards. There would be disruption and they would have less information available to do their jobs, including identifying and arresting people who could threaten the security of some of our citizens. They would have fewer options for pursuing criminals across borders as we would lose the ability to pool our efforts through Europol and Eurojust. It would take longer to track, arrest and bring to justice those who commit crimes internationally. I have established and I chair a weekly Cobra-style planning meeting within the Home Office to plan for this eventuality properly in case it comes about. But no matter how effectively we prepare for no deal, setting aside the capabilities we have developed with our EU partners will of course have some consequences.

Police Employer Pension Contributions

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

rose—

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Hurd]

I should be delighted to give way.

[Mike Gapes]

The hon. Member—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Gapes has only just come into the Chamber. He wants to hear a bit more of the debate before he intervenes so quickly. Come on! He should know better.

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[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so that the voice of Ilford can be heard.

[Mike Gapes]

I agree with every word.

[Wes Streeting]

I am almost certain that this is what my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) would have said, given the opportunity. Let us not lose sight of the fact that the challenge facing the Government after 2008 was the result of a global banking crisis. If it is true, as the Minister is suggesting, that the last Labour Government were profligate, perhaps he would like to explain why the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition at the time, up to the crash, were backing Labour spending pound for pound.

Leaving the EU: Rights of EU Citizens

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend points out the importance of controlling our own borders and being able to bring forward, for the first time in more than a generation, an immigration policy that will enable us to determine who comes here based on their skills, not on their nationality. It is a really important point that we should continue to be able to attract the brightest and the best, and we will be setting out full details of the future immigration policy in a White Paper, and indeed an immigration Bill, coming very soon.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

At the moment, many, many British people living in EU countries are very apprehensive about their future. They currently have EU citizenship rights, which they will lose if there is a no deal in March next year. What can the Minister say to reassure them? Is it not absurd that EU citizens in this country will have some protection, under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, but British people in the EU will have no protection whatsoever in the event of no deal?

[Caroline Nokes]

I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are working hard to ensure that there is a deal, but he raises an important point, which I think I have addressed a couple of times already. This country has made an offer to EU citizens and we have made it very clear that we want them to stay, but the same cannot be said of some of our European counterparts. This matter is pressed with Ministers at every available opportunity, and indeed with ambassadors and the EU, because it is important that British citizens living in the EU27, the majority of whom are in France and Spain, are afforded the protections to which we believe they are entitled under the withdrawal agreement.

TOEIC Visa Cancellations

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered TOEIC visa cancellations.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I place on record my enormous thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), who has put in a huge amount of hard work, not least in helping us to secure the debate. If he were not attending the Offensive Weapons Bill Committee, which unfortunately clashes, he would have been with us for the duration.

We are here to discuss Britain’s forgotten immigration scandal, which has seen thousands of international students wrongly deported and tens of thousands more left in limbo. Their lives have been plunged into chaos by a Government who have effectively branded them all cheats, defied the principles of natural justice and created a hostile environment for international students. In 2014, BBC’s “Panorama” uncovered evidence of widespread cheating at testing centres delivering the test of English for international communication—the TOEIC—on behalf of the Home Office for non-European economic area students as part of the tier 4 visa. It discovered that, in some colleges, exam invigilators read the correct answers to students or supplied proxies to sit sections of the test. The provider administering the tests, Educational Testing Service, claimed that 33,725 people who took the test used a proxy, and it suspected a further 22,694 instances of fraud.

That abuse on such a scale was allowed to take place at a Home Office-approved provider was clearly a source of political embarrassment for the Government and the Home Secretary of the day, who is now our Prime Minister. When immigration system abuse goes unchecked and unchallenged, it undermines public confidence in the system and the Government responsible for it. When individuals are found to be cheating the system, it is right that their visas are cancelled and they are asked to leave the country. When providers are found to be failing in their responsibility to ensure that tests are fairly and properly delivered, it is right that they are removed from the list of approved providers.

Cheating cannot be condoned or excused—there is no disagreement about that. The Minister comes to this issue with a fresh pair of eyes, and therein lies an opportunity to reflect on what has gone wrong and put right a terrible injustice. What we have seen in the TOEIC scandal is a Home Office response so appalling that it was described by one immigration tribunal judge as

“so unfair and unreasonable as to amount to an abuse of power.”

The 22,694 students whose test results had been deemed questionable because ETS had “limited confidence” in the tests’ validity due to of administrative irregularity were permitted to sit a new secure English language test. When the Minister responds, I hope she will tell us how many of those students were required to pay for those new tests and, crucially, what the outcomes of those tests were.

For those whose test results were deemed invalid by ETS, the Home Office relied on the assurances of an untrustworthy provider to presume the guilt of tens of thousands of international students without properly considering the merits of individual cases or giving those students an opportunity to defend their innocence. According to figures obtained by the House of Commons Library, by the end of September 2016—the last time the Home Office published any figures related to such cases—more than 35,870 visa holders had had their visas refused or curtailed on the basis of the TOEIC test. More than 3,600 of those had received an enforcement visit and more than 4,600 had been subjected to removal from the country.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Wes Streeting]

I give way to my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes).

[Mike Gapes]

Like me, my hon. Friend has been contacted by constituents who have been subjected to this outrageous behaviour, so he will know that many people are distraught and have had their whole futures destroyed by these administrative measures. Is it not a fact that this a bigger scandal than Windrush in terms of the number of individuals removed from the country and whose livelihoods are being destroyed by anguish and despair? In many cases, they are labelled as cheats when they are not.

[Wes Streeting]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend could be here before returning to the main Chamber to consider the important matter of Brexit. I strongly agree and he is absolutely correct. The injustice is grave and the numbers affected are huge. This scandal should have been plastered on the front page of every national newspaper. It is bad enough that those students have been denied access to justice through appeal. They should have been given at least some sense of justice through the disinfectant of sunlight.

Amesbury Incident

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Yes. As my hon. Friend will know, a number of agencies and organisations are involved in addressing this incident—to deal not only with the criminal investigation, but the health issues—and I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The St Petersburg troll factories and the RT propaganda channel are already gearing up to spread misinformation. Could we not at least do a little bit more to expose this? In particular, would Members of all parties in this House not appear on Putin’s propaganda television channel?

Windrush

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

It is absolutely astonishing that people should be given bonuses for the number of people they can boot out of the country. It is disgusting. What has the United Kingdom come to? I may be a Scottish nationalist, but I also consider myself British, and there are many aspects of the UK—[Interruption.] Yes, I am. Actually, I am half Irish as well—thank God, because I am getting an Irish passport. I am not one of those people who says the UK has never done anything good, but by God is this a smear on the UK’s reputation across the world.

Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister would not even speak to the heads of delegations from the Commonwealth about this issue; she thought she could get it swept under the carpet. Then she thought she could use the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye as her human shield. That did not work either. She thought she could come to the House this morning and get off the hook. Well, she is not off the hook. She needs to answer for the policies that have caused this problem.

We are hearing a lot today about how the Windrush generation will be sorted out. The previous Home Secretary gave us an undertaking that there would not be any more enforcement action against the Windrush generation. However, my question to the Home Secretary is this: if he cannot get the Windrush generation, which vulnerable group is he going to go after next to meet his targets?

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the hon. and learned Lady seen the Financial Times today? There is an article about the test of English for international communication, which reveals that 35,000 people have had their status as students in this country revoked. In 20% of those cases, that was based on a system of voice recognition that has proved to be faulty. An estimated 7,000 Bangladeshi, Indian and other students, including my constituents, have been removed from this country, or are at the threat of removal at this moment, because of a policy introduced in 2014 by the then Home Secretary—now the Prime Minister.

[Joanna Cherry]

The hon. Gentleman is describing the results of this policy. The Government and the Home Office have to go after low-hanging fruit. They went after the Windrush generation, but they have been called out on that and they are embarrassed—hence all the shouting, the spurious points of order and the attempts to shut us up for calling them out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have been a Member of the House for 26 years and I want to begin by talking about my experience with a Conservative Government when I was first elected.

In those days, Ministers were willing to meet Members personally when they had a case of somebody in difficulty. I remember a young woman who had won a newspaper competition for a free holiday in Morocco with her husband, but who had the misfortune to have been born in the northern part of Cyprus before Cyprus had its independence. There were all kinds of difficulty and she could not get a post office to issue her a British passport. I got Charles Wardle to overturn the decision of his officials. They gave her travel documents, but he said to me, “Please, please don’t make this public until after I have ceased to be a Minister.”

I remember the Secretary of State for International Trade, when he was a Foreign Office Minister, overruling officials: he was a doctor and he understood the compassionate case that I made for somebody to come here as a visitor and be able to care for someone. I remember Ministers in that time, and I say this because I am trying to get this Government to understand—there has been a change in culture.

In July 2013, the go-home vans were sent into my constituency. That sent fear into many, many people. There has been the development of a culture of disbelief within the Home Office. That has happened over many years. Between 2001 and 2002, I was in the Home Office as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister dealing with immigration and nationality, Lord Rooker. I can say there was enormous pressure at that time because of the political climate that we had had develop in this country.

I see the current crisis as an opportunity. If the documentation is properly made available to the Home Affairs Committee, which will then decide what is appropriate to be published and what is not—I am sure that the Committee can be trusted to do that, given the integrity of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—there will be a chance for us to put some things right. I am not just talking about the Windrush issue. There are other problems, including the English language test scandal exposed by the Financial Times, which I mentioned in my intervention on the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). There is a similar issue with the tier 2 high-value migrant visas.

There are people in this country today, in different categories, who came here perfectly legitimately, but who have now found that their status is being challenged and they are being told that they have to leave. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) said, the coalition Government scrapped the plans for ID cards that were in the pipeline from the Labour Government. If that had not happened, the situation would not be perfect but we would be in a much better position today to deal with this culture of disbelief.