Violence and Abuse towards the Retail Workforce

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I hesitate to venture into other police areas, but we find this issue across a number of regions and I will come on to the issue of antisocial behaviour. Dedicated police teams can be very helpful, so I hope that the Minister will listen to that plea from my hon. Friend.

I am not the first person to bring this matter to the attention of the House; in fact, two Westminster Hall debates have considered similar motions in just the last five years, and one of them came from the Petitions Committee. Clearly, our constituents care enough about the subject to have signed a public petition that has secured over 100,000 signatures.

In 2020, the Government produced their response to a Home Office consultation, which had begun in April 2019, on violence and abuse towards shop staff. The response promised to address the roots of the problem and provide support to victims. In 2022, an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was enacted, meaning that if a victim of one of a range of specified offences had been providing services, goods or facilities to the public at the time of the offence, that would be considered as an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes. The Government have said that they consider the existing law sufficient to protect retail workers. That leads me to this question: which retail workers have the Government been asking? I say that because, having spoken to workers on the ground, it is clear to me that the protections already in place are insufficient.

Despite the debates and the consultation, incidents of violence and intimidation are still rising. USDAW’s survey of retail staff in 2023 found that two thirds of its members who work in retail suffer abuse from customers, 42% had been threatened by a customer and 5% had been assaulted. We are talking about being spat or coughed at, being slapped, punched or kicked, or being attacked with weapons. Shockingly, the executive chairman of Iceland has revealed that three Iceland workers are now HIV-positive as a result of needle attacks on staff. Last year, USDAW’s figures showed that four in 10 retail workers experienced anxiety about work and three in 10 were considering changing jobs as a result. That is why we are continuing to see them speak up about the conditions that they are working in.

As I said, the Westminster Hall debate in 2021 was prompted by a petition asking the Government to enact legislation that would create a specific offence of abusing, threatening or assaulting a retail worker. As I also said, it reached over 100,000 signatures, but still the epidemic of violence continued. Therefore, this year, another petition has started—it is still in force—calling for the same measure to be taken. There is a strong, consistent public demand for change.

From speaking to them, I know that shop workers in my constituency—and store managers, in fact—feel strongly that the creation of a specific offence is the right path to follow. They believe that that would not only recognise the scale of the problem but encourage police attendance, which they feel is lacking, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) has said. There is a widespread feeling within the retail sector that theft has been effectively decriminalised over the past 13 years of Conservative Governments.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees with me on these two points. First, this is a very serious matter and impacts every single constituency in the UK. Secondly, tackling violence and abuse against shop workers does not seem to be a priority on the Government Benches; as far as I can see, there are no speakers from the Government Back Benches in this debate.

[Liz Twist]

I certainly agree that the Government have failed to go far enough. They had the opportunity last year when they introduced the aggravating-factor legislation, but we need to go much further than that.

As I said, there is a widespread feeling within the sector that theft has been effectively decriminalised. In the same vein, another policy being criticised is the practice of issuing fixed penalty notices for shop thefts under £200. The failure to investigate those thefts leaves workers feeling as though the crimes that they have experienced, often involving abusive behaviour towards them, are not taken seriously by the police or the Government.

The lack of confidence in our institutions has been reflected by a drop in the reporting of incidents of violence and abuse. The British Retail Consortium notes that there has been a decline in reporting of such incidents to 32%, as workers have increasingly lost faith that the police will take action. The commitments made in the retail crime action plan, which tells police to prioritise incidents involving violence, are welcome, but we must ensure that local police forces are encouraged and supported to implement that approach on the ground. We must also ensure that they have the resources to respond. In my area, Northumbria police are still 400 police officers down from 2010, and it is the same in other parts of the north-east.

Retail workers find themselves at the frontline of antisocial behavioural issues, but the problem goes beyond shop floors. Across my constituency and the country, people are concerned about the antisocial behaviour taking place in their own communities. When my submission for this debate was accepted, it sparked a conversation in my office about times that, as customers, we have seen those acts of aggression play out. In the winter months, with the nights getting dark ever earlier, the worry of bad behaviour in shops will create not just a fearful situation for the staff but one that risks turning away customers.

Strikingly, USDAW’s most recent survey suggests that an estimated two thirds of abusive incidents are linked with addiction, yet we see nothing in the Government’s announcement of the Pegasus programme acknowledging that relationship or exploring the role that drug and alcohol treatment services have to play in tackling this issue. That is another area in which the Government’s promise to address the root causes of retail crime rings completely hollow. It is astonishing that, despite those statistics, the debate, the personal examples and the outcry from businesses and staff alike, workers still feel afraid of their place of work and are worried that, just by showing up for their shift, they will be putting themselves in harm’s way. The sector has long been calling out for more to be done on the issue, and I am proud that Labour is a party willing to listen to that call.

On a local level, I am pleased that our police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness, has been getting heads together within the retail sector and local police forces to identify what has been working and what has not—listening to our retail workers, so that they feel recognised and supported. There is also work to be done nationally. Labour will create a new specific offence of assault against retail workers. That has been called for by the likes of the chief executive officer of Tesco, Jason Tarry, who said:

“We want our colleagues to be safe at work. Creating a standalone offence not only sends a strong message to the small but violent group of people who abuse and attack shopworkers, but also makes it clear to shopworkers that as a nation we take protecting them seriously.”

Labour would go further, scrapping the £200 rule that stops shoplifting from being investigated and putting guaranteed neighbourhood patrols back into town centres, with 13,000 more neighbourhood police and police community support officers.

When it comes to the abuse and crime that affect our shop workers, the numbers do not lie. Sadly, they have become common practice and although so many across the industry are calling for something to be done, their calls are going unanswered. To put it simply, we need to do more to protect the retail workforce. No one should have to go to work in fear of being verbally abused, assaulted or victimised just for doing their job. I hope that the Minister will reconsider the seriousness of the situation and make this abuse a crime in its own right. That is what those people I spoke to in my constituency want. It is what the sector wants and what our retail workforce deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend—my good friend—the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing this debate. I declare to the House that I am a member of USDAW, the retail sector trade union. I worked in the retail sector for six years, so I was, and I remain, a member of USDAW. I also refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

In my constituency there are 9,000 retail workers, whose jobs make up 16.4% of those in the constituency. In my region, the north-west, there are 523,000-plus retail workers. Retail jobs are important in my constituency, in the north-west and across the UK. As part of the recent Respect for Shopworkers Week, I visited the Co-op on Castle Street. As on previous visits, I spoke to the managers and shop floor staff, and they told me about the incidents of antisocial behaviour, violence, sometimes threats, shoplifting and all of that. Often they feel that nothing is done. What are the police doing to tackle those issues? This is a serious matter, and it causes problems not just for shop workers but for customers who have to witness such incidents.

The stats were mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and for Blaydon. There are about 850 incidents of violence or abuse against shop workers daily, so the figures are quite high. The recent survey by USDAW, which had about 3,000 responses from retail workers, found that 65% of retail workers had been verbally abused, 42% had been threatened and a shocking 17.5% had been assaulted, with 4.8% assaulted just this year. Those figures are staggering, and we need action rather than just warm words from the Government.

This debate is about violence and abuse towards the retail workforce, but I want to add a point about the value of retail jobs. These are important jobs. Often, they are low paid—they are not seen as well-paying jobs—and they involve long hours, and sometimes people are on zero-hours contracts. USDAW produced an updated report in July 2023 called “A Plan For The Future Of Retail Work”. I would be happy to give my paper copy to the Minister if he is interested, because these jobs should be good, well-paid jobs and people should be able to afford to bring up their families and look after their communities. Often, however, these jobs are difficult and, on top of the financial difficulties, staff face violence and a lot of abuse. That needs to be tackled.

I am sorry to say that the Government have failed us. Not only do we not have a specific offence for violence and abuse against shop workers, but we have seen significant cuts to my local force, Greater Manchester police, in the last 13 years of Conservative Government. The officers I speak to—just last week, I spoke to a senior Greater Manchester police officer in the Stockport district—do a difficult job. They have their own issues with regard to the workforce, the capacity of officers, the complexity of crimes, the rise in population, the rise in crime and all those issues, and they are often not able to support shopkeepers, shop workers or bigger stores with these incidents. We have seen a perfect cocktail of failure, where the Government have not legislated and there has been a massive increase in these crimes, but where there have also been cuts to police numbers. We need to address that.

The Freedom from Fear campaign, which is run throughout the year by USDAW, the retail sector trade union, is important. There is also Respect for Shopworkers Week, and USDAW’s general secretary, Paddy Lillis, was on the parliamentary estate earlier this year when my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington hosted him for a meeting with MPs. I met Mr Lillis last week and spoke to him about the concerns in the sector, and he told me that there are significant issues.

We need action from the Government, and we need to make sure that a specific offence is created. I worked in the retail sector for just under six years, and I had a good experience at a large national retailer. However, I did come across incidents where the customer was unpleasant or made derogatory, racist or sexist remarks. We need to make sure we legislate.

My final point is that Labour has made a specific commitment—and not just offered warm words about jam tomorrow—that it will table amendments to the Government’s Criminal Justice Bill to strengthen the law to protect retail workers. We need that, and we need it urgently. We also need to make sure that police forces, including Greater Manchester police, have the resources and the support they need to tackle the issues that make life difficult for shop workers and members of the community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I thank Members for their kind entreaties, but I will probably give it a miss.

This is a serious issue and the Government are taking it very seriously. Of course, crime in general is coming down. The crime survey for England and Wales, which according to the Office for National Statistics is the only reliable measure of long-term crime trends, shows that overall crime is down 10% year on year, and like-for-like crime is down 56% since 2010. That is very welcome, but—in common with other countries in the western world, including the United States, France and Germany—we have seen a worrying increase in shoplifting and assaults against retail workers in the past year or two. As I say, the phenomenon is not confined to the UK; it is wider than that.

Although it is welcome that prosecutions for shoplifting have increased by 29% since last year, the Government said in response to a number of retailers, including the Co-op and others, that more needs to be done. That is why I sat down over the summer with the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for serious organised and acquisitive crime—Amanda Blakeman, the chief constable of north Wales—to talk about developing a police action plan to do a lot more.

That action plan was published with the agreement of the police four or five weeks ago and was launched at No. 10 Downing Street. It contains a number of important components. The first is a commitment that the police will always follow up all reasonable lines of inquiry in relation to all crime. That is relevant to all kinds of crime types, but shoplifting is one of the most important. That means that if there is evidence that can be followed up, such as CCTV footage, the police will always do that regardless of the value of the goods stolen.

In the past six to 12 months, the artificial intelligence algorithm that enables facial matching has become a lot more sophisticated. If an image is received from a crime scene—it could be from a Ring doorbell, a dashcam, a mobile phone or CCTV anywhere, including in a shop—as it should always be under this new commitment, it can be run through the police national database, which contains millions of facial images from custody records. The algorithm is so good at matching now that even blurred or partially obscured images can be matched. The commitment always to follow lines of inquiry and always run images through the facial recognition database will lead to a lot more offenders being caught—shoplifters, but others as well. I set the target for police forces across England and Wales to double their use of facial recognition searches this year.

The first element is always to follow all reasonable lines of inquiry, with a particular emphasis on CCTV and facial recognition. Secondly, there is a police commitment to prioritise attending incidents of shoplifting in person where that is necessary to secure evidence; where there has been an assault on a retail worker, which is obviously relevant to today’s debate; and where an offender has been detained by, for example, store security staff. I heard statistics from the Co-op suggesting that where store security staff had detained an offender, the police had attended only in a quarter of cases. That is frankly unacceptable. We now have a commitment from policing to prioritise attendance in all cases where an offender has been detained. I would like Members of Parliament of all parties and police and crime commissioners to hold the police to account for delivering that.

Thirdly, the plan contains a commitment to use data analytics to identify and go after prolific offenders—that is, identifying what is often quite a small number of people committing a large volume of offences and specifically going after them. Fourthly—it may have been the hon. Member for Blaydon who mentioned this—there is an element of serious and organised crime, with organised criminal gangs targeting retail outlets. Project Pegasus, led by the Sussex police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne in partnership with 16 retailers, gathers data from those retailers and passes it to OPAL, which is the police data analysis centre for serious organised crime, including acquisitive crime, to identify the criminal gangs and go after them. That is partly funded by those retailers but is supported and organised by the police.

Those are the four components: following all lines of inquiry, including CCTV and facial recognition; targeting prolific offenders; attending incidents a lot more frequently; and going after serious and organised crime. That package together will lead to a significant increase in the number of offenders who are caught and the number of assaults prevented, and we will see that 29% increase in prosecutions go up considerably more.

[Navendu Mishra]

I appreciate the points that the Minister has made about policing and meeting the Co-op. Will he give a commitment to the House that he will meet USDAW, which is the sectoral trade union for retail workers, because the people who are at the forefront of this crisis are the low-paid retail workers themselves?

[Chris Philp]

Yes, I would be happy to do so—it would seem churlish to decline such an invitation.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned wages. I observe in passing that the minimum wage will go up by about 10% from next April to £11.44 an hour. That is quite a considerable increase, well above the rate of inflation. Of course, under the last Labour Government, it was only £5.93. If we adjust for inflation and the increase in the tax-free threshold, the take-home wages of someone working full time on the minimum wage are 30% higher than 13 years ago, which is welcome.

The Greater Manchester police were mentioned by, I think, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I commend Chief Constable Stephen Watson, who is doing a great job with GMP and led the way by implementing this concept of always following up all evidence, which seems like common sense, but it was not being universally done. He implemented that in Greater Manchester about a year and a half ago, and it led to a 44% increase in arrests and prosecutions. It is exactly that approach that worked under Stephen Watson’s leadership that we are applying nationwide, including to shoplifting.

I will say a word or two on several other points raised in the debate. The first is the offence of assaulting a retail worker. We know that Scotland has a separate offence and that there have been calls to have a similar one here. Of course assaulting a retail worker is an offence: it is assault. It could be common assault, grievous bodily harm, grievous bodily harm with intent and so on. It is a criminal offence and, as I believe the hon. Member for Blaydon acknowledged, we legislated in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 to make it a statutory aggravating factor where the victim is a public-facing worker—that includes retailers and others. That means that a judge is obliged, in statute, to pass a higher sentence than they otherwise would, in recognition of the fact that the victim is a public-facing worker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I can confirm that across England and Wales as a whole, as I think the hon. Lady knows, we have 149,566 police officers; that is as of 31 March this year. The number is higher than it has ever been in history and it is about 3,500 higher than the previous peak in March 2010, so there is a record number nationally. As for each individual force area, the choices made by individual PCCs—

[Navendu Mishra]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

I am going to conclude, because I do not want to overburden the Chamber and I wish to finish answering the point. The numbers in individual force areas reflect choices made by individual PCCs over time, for example, about the precept and about the balance between officer numbers, police stations and so on. What we have done in government is make sure that there are record numbers nationally. We have also put more money into policing, so this year PCCs had £550 million more available to them than last year. In addition, we fully funded the 7% pay rise between 2.5% and 7%, which this year entailed an extra £330 million.

Those resources are going in. In addition, from next April we are funding—in every one of the 43 police force areas in England and Wales, including the hon. Lady’s—specially funded antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols. I would expect them mainly to concentrate on town centres and high streets, where shoplifting may also occur. Where we have piloted those in the past four or five months, including in Blackpool, parts of Staffordshire and parts of Essex, we have seen reductions of 20% or 30% in antisocial behaviour and other forms of criminality. We will therefore fund each force, in addition to its regular funding settlement, to have those hotspot patrols, which should deliver something like 30,000 hours of specialist patrolling in each force area each year from April. I think that that will make a real difference.

Antisocial Behaviour and Off-road Bikes

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing the debate. People who are less familiar with Stockport often confuse it with Stockton, so it is interesting to be in this debate and to thank the hon. Member for securing it.

Moving on to more serious matters, I think the hon. Gentleman mentioned he has 264 more police officers on the street recently. Is the Minister aware of how many we have lost since 2010, when the austerity agenda came in? The Government have cut the grant to my local force, Greater Manchester police, by £215 million since 2010. As a direct result, we have 2,000 fewer police officers on our streets, and 1,000 fewer support officers. I am grateful to everyone at Greater Manchester police for the difficult job they do in challenging circumstances. I also want to highlight the important job done by police support officers.

My office receives a large amount of correspondence about antisocial behaviour and illegal off-road bikes. The issue seems more pronounced in the summer months. I have often seen and reported illegal off-road bikes in my constituency to the police. They cause a lot of problems for residents. People who live on their own, are elderly or have health or mobility issues feel quite threatened in their own homes, due to antisocial behaviour and illegal off-road bikes. It is sad to say that my office receives a lot of letters, emails and phone calls—the figure for the last few weeks is around 250 pieces of correspondence about antisocial behaviour, and around 40 about illegal off-road bikes. I meet the police regularly to get updates, and I hold regular resident meetings to talk about these matters and learn the fundamental issues from residents.

It is all well and good for the Government to talk about what they are going to do, but they have significantly cut police funding in the last 13 years—although the solution cannot just be more police on the street; there has to be a well-rounded solution.

[Peter Gibson]

I am interested in the point the hon. Gentleman is making, but does he acknowledge that we now have more officers in our police forces nationwide than ever before?

[Navendu Mishra]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He is making an important point, but I wonder whether he has compared the rise in police officers with the rise in population, and the complexity of crime. It is not just about more men and women in police uniforms on the street; it is also about the type of work they do.

I have been in the constituency with officers who tell me that they have to do more and more in less and less time. The types of crime being committed can be extremely complex and time-consuming. A few months ago, an officer told me about the impact of the workload on her mental health. We have to be realistic about the nature of crime, the amount and complexity of crime, and the understaffing. All those issues have to be addressed. It might be fair to say that there are more police officers now than ever, but the population has also gone up, and the nature and complexity of crime have also changed.

[Alexander Stafford]

We are talking about the complexity of crime. Off-road bikes, antisocial behaviour and auto-crime are complex crimes. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need bespoke solutions to deal with that? In South Yorkshire, we have an off-road bike team that does an amazing job, but there is only a handful of them doing that. Does he agree that some of those extra officers need to go into more off-road bike teams, with their own quad bikes, to tackle the people who are riding their own bikes? We need to have the right officers doing the right jobs to deal with this particular type of crime.

[Navendu Mishra]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. We have a dedicated team in Greater Manchester police that deals with illegal off-road bike crime. I wish there were more officers on that team, of course. We have had several issues with Greater Manchester police over the last few years. I cannot comment on South Yorkshire police; I am not an expert on South Yorkshire.

The force, under new leadership in the last couple of years, has done a lot of good work. As I said earlier, I want to thank officers in Greater Manchester police, but the reality is that they are still underfunded and could do a lot more. It seems to me that the Government do not have that on their list of priorities. Living in one’s own home and being threatened by antisocial behaviour and illegal off-road bikes, with people wearing full face coverings, might be low intensity, but it can be serious for people.

I will make a couple of concluding points. There are high levels of antisocial behaviour in Stockport and across Britain. My local council has seen a 30% cut to its settlement funding. I do not think we would have seen such high levels of crime if the local council funding had not been cut and if Greater Manchester police’s funding—police funding in general—had not been cut. The solution cannot just be talking about putting more and more police officers on the street. We have to talk about youth clubs and what we offer these young people. We have to talk about support services and all those issues.

Finally, more generally in the north-west, between 2015 and 2022 there was a 41% fall in the number of neighbourhood police. The figures are staggering. I hope the Minister will address these important issues, particularly the complexity of the problem and the workload for police officers. We have seen crime go up, but prosecutions, cautions and community penalties have all gone down. That is a fact. Too often, when people report crimes or antisocial behaviour, they feel that absolutely nothing is done. That seems to be what many people feel, not just in Stockport but across Greater Manchester and England. It has to be addressed.

Forced Repatriation of Chinese Seamen from Liverpool After World War Two

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I certainly join the hon. Member in condemning those who seek to use any time of crisis as an opportunity to sow division, to exacerbate community relations or to peddle their own brand of prejudice and try to blame others for the situations that we face. Whatever anyone thinks of the decisions of the Chinese Government, that is very different from then seeking to stoke hatred against the people of China and against the many people of Chinese heritage who have made the UK their home, who are British and who are part of what our British values should be—that we are a welcoming society that looks at people as who they are, not what the colour of their skin is.

The Chinese seamen who had been in the Merchant Navy during the war form part of the vast numbers of people displaced at the end of the conflict. This included members of the armed forces, refugees, prisoners of war and, of course, merchant seamen of all nations. The records relating to the activity that happened 75 years ago are incomplete. I am somewhat reliant on the same archive material that hon. Members and their constituents have access to, given that Home Office documents and records have been moved to the National Archives in Kew. And given the passage of time, people will of course realise that those directly involved clearly no longer work in the Home Office. Many will have died and, even if they are still alive, the youngest that they are likely to be is in their late 90s and probably aged well over 100.

The relevant powers used came from the Essential Work (Merchant Navy) Order, which came into force on 26 May 1941 and was owned by the then Ministry of Labour. The order was made under the Defence (General) Regulations 1939. The Home Office had always left the management and legality of the system to the then major shipping countries. This was not a matter relating to immigration rules as such, given that the modern concept of immigration control would not emerge until some decades later, but one which, according to archived historical records, was discussed by Home Office officials in Whitehall and immigration officers in Liverpool. Having looked at some of those documents, the language used to describe both merchant seamen and their wives in official records is not what would be acceptable today.

What those records also show is that a programme of repatriations did take place, starting in November 1946 and continuing for much of 1947. They were not confined to Chinese nationals and were against the backdrop of the wider work of demobilising and dealing with displaced people at the end of the war. There is contemporaneous evidence to suggest the then Ministry of Transport attempted to secure work for the merchant seamen and, during the initial repatriation process between November and December 1945, a number of Chinese seamen were identified as having British wives and their removal was rightly deferred. There is evidence to suggest that no Chinese merchant seamen who had British wives were deported, although I appreciate that some were later deported due to their criminal activity. But given the passage of time, we cannot say for certain from official records that this did not happen, and I am aware of the comments and particularly the evidence that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside cited.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I congratulate my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), on securing this very important debate. I would also like to pay tribute to the work of my good comrade, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), on this issue. I wonder if the Minister agrees with me that this historic injustice is a blatant form of racism against the Chinese seamen. Would he come forward with a full acknowledgement and apology for this community?

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. It is hard to come to any other conclusion from reading the paperwork of the time, and let us be clear that, at the time, racism was normalised in society. It was still perfectly lawful to deny someone a job based purely on their race or ethnicity, and it is hard to not draw a conclusion from the way people are referred to that it is explicit. They are consistently referred to as “Chinese seamen”, not “unemployed seamen” or “seamen now surplus to requirements”. Consistently through the documents, “Chinese seamen” are talked about. As I touched on, there were wider repatriations going on at the end of the war, but it is very clear to see and, certainly from some of that documents that I have read, the conclusion is inescapable that ethnicity, in terms of being Chinese, was a clear factor in some of the decisions being taken. Some derogatory comments were made against those women who had married. It is hard to believe that those comments would have been made against perhaps, for the sake of argument, American or Canadian seamen who happened to be in Liverpool at the time. I will come on to some of my thoughts on the wider position and potentially what further action we could take later.

We must learn from the past to inform the present. The Home Office has defined and published our vision and mission of creating a safe, fair and prosperous UK, and we have set out our new core values of being a Department that is compassionate, courageous, collaborative and respectful. We recently launched the One Home Office transformation programme as part of the sweeping reforms we are making in the Department. Central to this programme is the transformation of our culture towards a more open and compassionate Department to build the Department into one that the British people look up to and admire.

We are also taking steps to ensure that we consistently involve communities and stakeholders in our policy development by identifying who the stakeholders or impacted groups are across different business areas and then conducting meaningful engagement with those communities. Importantly in relation to this issue, as part of the Home Office comprehensive improvement plan in response to the Windrush lessons learned review, every member of Home Office staff will undertake training on the history of migration and race in the UK so they can better understand the impact of departmental decisions, including when developing and applying immigration policy.

I have heard at some length what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside says, and I have heard what has also been stated in the Chamber. I am very happy, and very keen actually, to say that if the hon. Member would like to pass on details of any particular cases, we would be happy to look into them further at the Home Office, bearing in mind, as she touched on in her own speech, that the historical records may be incomplete. They are not there in their entirety, and of course with the passage of time, as I touched on earlier, we cannot now realistically speak to those who were involved in these operations, given that we do not believe any of them are still left alive.

In relation to those records, I can, however, confirm that I have asked officials in the Home Office to undertake research into this action, and I have asked them to report back after recess. I will come back to the hon. Member with the outcome of this research and any recommendations it provides to me, or at least try to give some closure to the children who survive. I have been particularly struck by the stories of those affected by this issue who, not unreasonably after 75 years, just want answers: what happened to their dad, and what happened at that time? That is the thing, although I have to say that I do not think I can promise we will be able to do that for everyone, given the passage of time. As I say, the records, sadly, are not complete, but we would certainly be happy to engage with them—and I would certainly be happy to meet the hon. Member—to hear some of their evidence, see if that is something we can use and, as I say, see if we can bring at least some information and some closure to them as part of this process.

Following this review, I will ensure that the post-war deportation and repatriation of Chinese merchant seamen is captured as part of the material used to train Home Office staff members on the history of migration and race in the UK that I have just mentioned. I think it is important that we learn from the past. We would all sit here now and say that this is not a policy that would be implemented today, and it is absolutely shocking that those who had literally risked their lives throughout the battle of the Atlantic then found themselves treated in that manner. I think it is right that we capture this and ensure that those taking decisions in the future are aware of where we have come from as a nation as we move forward in our mission.

Let me conclude by again expressing my gratitude to the hon. Member for raising this important issue in the House this evening. On behalf of the Government, I express our deep regret that some of those who had faced the most extreme dangers of war to keep our country supplied in its darkest hours were treated in this way.

Question put and agreed to.

Delays in the Asylum System

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered delays in the asylum system.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank the many Members attending the debate for their ongoing efforts to push the Government to address the delays in the asylum system. It is shocking that not a single Conservative Member thought it necessary to take part in a debate on such an important issue.

I pay tribute to the many organisations and charities that campaign tirelessly to raise awareness of the issue, as well as those—including the Refugee Council, Detention Action, the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, and Lift the Ban, to name just a few—that provide vital support to some of the most vulnerable people on our planet. So many people are worthy of recognition for their incredible work, such as Councillor Wilson Nkurunziza, Councillor Irfan Syed and Stockport’s own Mrs Sandy Broadhurst. There are also those who do so much at national level to keep the issue at the forefront of everyone’s minds, such as Lord Alf Dubs.

In my region, Refugee Action Manchester and the Refugee Council provide life-saving and life-changing support to asylum seekers, while Stockport Baptist church in my constituency has done so much over the years to help to raise funds to provide accommodation, food, pocket money and transport to those in need. I am grateful to the volunteers from the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, who support the incredibly vulnerable people who are subject to immigration control. Significantly, they have worked with local authorities across Greater Manchester, and seven of the 10 councils have signed up to remote asylum interviewing for looked-after children: Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford and Wigan.

Our country has a proud history of standing up for and protecting refugees, who are among the most vulnerable people on earth, having undertaken perilous journeys to reach our shores to seek sanctuary from the very worst of humanity. We are the fifth richest country in the world and that is absolutely the right thing to do. It is also right that our country provides shelter to people—not excluding them, but enabling them to earn a living to support themselves and their family.

I am proud that my part of the world, the north-west, is the largest asylum dispersal conurbation in the UK, housing 25% of our country’s applicants, with 70% of those living in Greater Manchester. Data provided by the House of Commons Library reveals that 138 asylum seekers are based in Stockport and more than 6,000 in Greater Manchester as a whole, which is two thirds of the total in the north-west region. It is heart-warming to see how my community has embraced those people and helped them to integrate into our community. I have long been an admirer of the work of Stockport Baptist church, whose congregation and supporters have raised funds to support refugees with food, pocket money, accommodation and transport costs.

It cannot be right, however, that so many are simply stuck in the system for long periods, unsure of what their fate will be. Detention Action revealed that more than half of the almost 40,000 people in detention centres have been waiting for a decision for more than a year. A similar number have been waiting for up to five years, with almost 25,000 people indefinitely detained last year.

Greater Manchester Immigration Aid provides urgent assistance to more than 50 young people who have been waiting the best part of a year for an asylum decision, despite half already having had a remote interview. Even when the asylum system is functioning marginally more efficiently, the average wait for those handled by my local unit is 51 days, with the longest wait being 82 days—almost three months. That is completely unacceptable, and it involves the livelihoods of some of the poorest people in our society, including young people.

It is vital that the Government look again at how those in the system are treated. One issue that must be addressed is the Aspen card handover debacle. I focus on that issue because it reflects many of the problems in the system. Aspen is a debit payment card given to UK asylum seekers by the Home Office to provide basic subsistence support via a chip-and-pin system. However, purchases made using the card are closely monitored by the Home Office, making it an insidious surveillance tool. Recently, the Home Office switched providers, which proved nothing short of disastrous owing to the 48-hour period between the old card being deactivated and the new one going live, forcing people to live off what little means they had.

That is just one of myriad problems, from claimants not receiving their cards to their receiving cards carrying the wrong name, cards without money on them or cards that do not work, or people being unable to activate their cards. When cards were not working, asylum seekers could apply for emergency cash payments from accommodation providers, but those have been inconsistently applied and people could not access any more payments. There are stories from the Refugee Council of such people having to survive for days without food.

That is an absolute disgrace, and it can never be allowed to happen again. Why was it even allowed to happen in the first place? Perhaps the Minister will answer that question today. However, well before the card changeover took place, multiple organisations forewarned the Home Office that there could be problems, and it is clear they were simply not listened to. When the matter was raised in Parliament, the Government attempted to give the impression that it was a minor issue, rather than one that had gone on for weeks. Their claims could not be further from the truth, with many asylum experts describing the Government’s handling of the issue as the worst failure they have seen in the system. That is why the likes of Asylum Matters are continuing to raise awareness of it—they want the Home Office not only to acknowledge its failings, but to learn from them so that we never again put the neediest people in society in this desperate situation.

There are also well documented and widespread concerns about the way women are dealt with in the asylum process, particularly whether that process is sensitive to specific issues faced by women. The expectation that a woman has been the victim of domestic abuse or rape, and will be able to disclose that during her interview with a UK visa and immigration caseworker, has been pointed to as a serious problem.

There cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. We must acknowledge that these are incredibly vulnerable people in the most desperate of circumstances and act accordingly. That means shining a light on the failings of the system, rather than demonising those within it. Just last month, asylum seekers held at the Home Office’s widely criticised Napier military barracks claimed they would be blacklisted if they spoke out following the High Court ruling that to use the site was unlawful. That included them being told that their asylum application would be at risk if they talked to the media about conditions at the camp. Instead of attacking those in the barracks who are in conditions described as “squalid” during the successful legal challenge, the Government should have acted immediately to close the camp.

The failures in our system cause untold distress and are a considerable factor in the high levels of mental health problems among asylum seekers. Refugees are five times more likely to have mental health needs than people in the general UK population, while 61% report that they have suffered serious mental distress as a result of their ordeal, including higher rates of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders.

The way the Government treat asylum seekers in this country—the fifth richest in the world—is truly shameful. That lack of humanity was exposed during the 2015 migrant crisis when our European counterparts, such as Germany, showed benevolence, true compassion and leadership by giving asylum to more than 1 million people fleeing war in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. In stark contrast, the UK allowed a paltry 25,000 the safety and sanctuary of our shores.

I am sure Members on both sides of the House agree that on this issue language is important. Asylum seekers are people—fellow human beings who deserve to be treated with respect and in a fair manner—and following a decade when we have experienced the hostile environment orchestrated by the Home Office under this Government, I urge the Minister to do the right thing and offer those people a route out of poverty and destitution.

We do not need more distressing words and scenes from the Home Secretary. Sadly, just yesterday, we bore witness to the Home Secretary’s latest demonisation of migrants, with her shamefully describing those vulnerable people as “vile criminals”, smearing the vast majority of honest, law-abiding citizens who seek sanctuary in our country. As HOPE not hate made clear in its response, the Home Secretary’s words were disgraceful.

The Home Secretary also set out callous plans with proposals revealed for new legislation that will pave the way for offshore centres for asylum seekers, and criminal charges for migrants arriving in the UK without permission. The new laws will likely see thousands of refugees turned away and vulnerable migrants criminalised for seeking a better life. Furthermore, a Refugee Council analysis of Home Office data suggests that 9,000 people who would be accepted as refugees under the current rules—those confirmed by official checks to have left war and persecution—might no longer be given safety in the UK because of how they arrived. That really would be an all-time low for this Government.

The Government must do more to enable those seeking asylum to have the right to work. Last year, the Lift the Ban campaign—a coalition of more than 240 charities and trade unions, including Unison, the National Education Union and the NASUWT, as well as businesses, faith groups and think-tanks—presented the Home Office with a petition signed by more than 180,000 people, which called on the Government to lift the ban. They are still waiting for that ban to be overturned, which is why I recently tabled an early-day motion, which has been signed by 42 MPs to date. It calls on the Government to

“recognise the injustice of preventing people seeking asylum from working”,

particularly when they are forced to live on a derisory £5.66 a day. After all, that is in the Government’s own interest: if those seeking asylum had the right to work, that would lead to fewer support payments and increased income tax and national insurance receipts of up to £100 million for the public purse.

The bottom line is that the pandemic has exposed the harsh reality that asylum seekers cannot be safe under such restrictive rules. Far from being looked after, they are forced to depend on tiny handouts each day and to choose between food, medicine and hygiene products, while being prevented from having the dignity of work.

The Government must do far more to address their unfair dispersal system. The majority of asylum seekers are housed in disadvantaged local authority areas while dozens of councils support none at all. Figures show that more than half of those who seek asylum or who have been brought to Britain for resettlement are accommodated by just 6% of local councils, all of which have household incomes that are below average.

Finally, the Government must heed the United Nations Human Rights Council proposal to reform the registration, screening and decision making process, including introducing an effective triaging and prioritisation system, as well as simplified asylum case processing and front-loading the asylum system to enable more information to be gathered earlier in the process.

It is time our Government stopped their gunboat diplomacy and treated asylum seekers with the dignity and humanity that they deserve. When most are fleeing war-torn countries that the UK helped to play a role in devastating, that is surely the very least we can do.

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

I am not going to enforce a formal time limit on speeches at this stage, but I expect Members to adhere to an informal limit of around four minutes. I call Virendra Sharma.

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[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) on securing this debate, which provides Members with an opportunity to raise concerns about both specific cases and the generality of the increasing and increasingly worrying delays experienced by so many people in the asylum and immigration system. It is pretty clear from today’s debate that the delays are just one failure among many in a system that is no longer fit for purpose, and has not been for many years, and is one that—whether by accident or, as is more likely, design—contributes to the continuing hostile environment for people seeking safety and refuge in this country.

We should thank the Refugee Council and some of the other organisations that have been mentioned for their hard work in producing the report that has provided the statistics about difficulties and delays in the system, which are borne out by the experiences from our own case work. That is, I suspect, a cross-party experience—even in the absence of any Government Back Benchers. To ensure that the Minister and the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson have plenty of time to respond, I will briefly consider the situation, the evidence, the consequences, some specific examples, the wider context of the hostile environment, and the need for action from the Government.

The stark reality of the situation has been set out in the report from the Refugee Council and in today’s speeches. There is a significant and growing backlog of cases and asylum applications waiting to be cleared, and that simply compounds the pressure, with things starting to spiral out of control. In recent months, we have all become familiar with the difficulties of exponential growth, and that is almost happening here. That comes despite the fact that, yes, there has been some investment in Home Office caseworkers. It is worth noting that many of them are hard-working—like our own caseworkers, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) pointed out—and have to deal with incredibly difficult situations and listen to people’s difficult life stories. This is challenging for our caseworkers and for Home Office staff.

Individual Home Office officials are not to blame, but they are implementing the policies that are to blame. What they are having to do is ultimately driven by political decisions and a culture that pervades the Home Office. Earlier today in this Chamber there was a debate about visas for high-value migrants who are having their status denied due to minor tax return issues. I have spoken repeatedly in Westminster Hall and in Adjournment debates about the trouble with visas for artists, for priests and even for diplomats invited to this House to speak to all-party parliamentary groups. Later on, my SNP colleagues will be debating the impact of the bringing to an end of the European settled status scheme.

The basic message from the UK Government seems to be that people are simply not welcome in this country unless they have an awful lot of money that they are prepared to spend very quickly before they leave again. So, despite all of the rhetoric, it is clear that the “hostile environment” is still very much in operation, not least in the detention system, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) pointed out.

We have heard about plenty of individual cases today. In my own constituency, by May 2021 we had at least eight cases waiting more than six months for a response, and it was not the individual asylum seekers who were waiting more than six months for a response—it was our constituency office. Eventually we got some of those cases cleared by writing directly to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, but it should not have to be that way. Going to Members of Parliament to get a case dealt with should be a worst-case scenario, not a routine part of the process. Having a case raised by a Member on the Floor of the House, either in Westminster Hall or in Prime Minister’s Question Time, as we hear so frequently now, should not be a normal part of the process.

It is clear that the UK simply wants to make it as difficult and unpleasant as possible for people to apply for asylum in this country, despite the fact that, as Members have said, many of those who come here have been driven here by factors that we helped to cause, whether it is conflict, the use of weapons that we have manufactured and sold, or climate change caused by pollution from this country and other countries in the west. They have had to overcome extreme hardship and make incredibly difficult journeys, and they have not done that so they can live on £5 a day or so that they cannot even access things by using their Aspen card, which we have also heard about today.

Meanwhile, we deny our economy the opportunity to benefit from the skills and experience that people bring by denying them the right to work. The Conservatives are supposed to be in favour of entrepreneurship and a liberal, free-market economy, yet the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) spoke about the fact, which is true across the country, that tourist areas are crying out for people to work and the health service is crying out for support during covid. How many doctors and nurses do we know who are waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, but are being denied the opportunity to help others in this society?

In addition, people are forced into substandard and inappropriate accommodation, not least in Glasgow. There was the tragic situation of the people caught up in the incident in the Park Inn hotel. Just in the past couple of weeks, I have spoken to two constituents who were traumatised by their experiences there, as if they were not traumatised enough by the situations that caused them to come here and seek asylum in the first place. I would particularly like to hear from the Minister about what support, including what trauma counselling, is being provided to people who were caught up in that incident through no fault of their own, but through a decision taken by the Home Office to force people into hotel accommodation.

Many asylum seekers receive support from incredible community-based organisations, a number of which have been mentioned today. In particular, the hon. Members for Stockport and for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) spoke about the local organisations in their areas. I will just mention the Maryhill Integration Network, which does incredible work in Glasgow, North. This year, it is celebrating 20 years of working with the community and its outgoing director, Rema Sherifi, has worked for it for over 17 of those years. I wish her all the best.

Such organisations should not have to be firefighting. They are supposed to be about proactive integration across the community as a whole, building stronger communities. Many of them do that, but they could do more.

[Navendu Mishra]

On the point of voluntary organisations and professional organisations that campaign on these issues, lots of them have said that lifting the ban on work is very important. However, there is also a toxic environment in the media—perpetrated by the Home Office and several Government Members—that these humans should not be treated as humans. Does he agree that treating people with basic decency and kindness is extremely important?

[Patrick Grady]

Yes, absolutely, and that is the approach taken by the Scottish Government. They have published their “New Scots” strategy, to ensure that people arriving are supported and integrated from day one. That strategy sets out the vision:

“For a welcoming Scotland where refugees and asylum seekers are able to rebuild their lives from the day they arrive.”

The strategy commits to better access to essential services, such as education, housing, health and employment, recognising the skills, knowledge and resilience that refugees bring, and it aims to help people to settle, become part of the community and pursue their ambitions. The message that comes from Scotland, and from many of the Members here despite the message that comes from the UK Government, is that refugees are welcome and we want them to stay.

I endorse all the calls in the report from the Refugee Council; the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) in particular spoke about them in detail. However, what is clearly needed is a step change in attitude, and that is not provided in the “New Plan For Immigration” and the forthcoming Nationality and Borders Bill. Debates such as this one will help to make sure that the UK Government continue to be held to account, even if it is uncomfortable for the Minister that none of his party’s Back Benchers are here, either to support the Government’s policy or to speak about the difficulties that their constituents are facing. The message from the rest of us who have spoken in this debate today is very clear indeed—refugees are welcome and we will do all that we can to continue to make that a reality.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

Thank you, Mr Mundell. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship—I think for the first time, and I hope not for the last.

It is worth mentioning that I am appearing here today on behalf of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), who is participating in an Opposition day debate at the moment. He has direct responsibility for the area that we are discussing this afternoon.

Let me start by adding my congratulations to the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) on raising this important issue and on the thoughtful speech he gave in opening the debate.

Let me outline the steps that the United Kingdom has been taking and is taking to discharge our obligations to people who are in need of protection; they are obligations that we stand by and will not resile from. I first point to our resettlement programme, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referenced in his speech earlier. The programme has been going for some time, but it really took off in around 2015. Working with the UNHCR, we directly resettle into the United Kingdom people who are most directly in danger. The scheme is particularly focused on people in and around the Syria area, for obvious reasons. Over six years, a total of 25,000 people have been resettled directly into the United Kingdom from places of danger; 20,000 of them under the vulnerable persons resettlementj scheme, which focused particularly on Syria. That 25,000 is more than any other European country, which is something that the Government and we as a nation can be extremely proud of.

We also offer safe and legal routes via refugee family reunion, where people granted refugee status can bring in close family members and, in exceptional circumstances, wider family members. That scheme, over the past five or six years, has seen about 29,000 people come into the UK, about half of whom were children. We can also be proud of our record in that area.

Some comments were made earlier, particularly by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), asking whether we were playing our fair part. I have already pointed out that our resettlement programme is the largest of any European country. He also mentioned asylum numbers. In 2019, the last full year for which the European Union published data, the UK received 44,800 individual applications, according to the European Union’s website. Of the 28 countries covered, including the UK at that time, we came fifth. As far as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under 18 are concerned, in 2019 the UK’s intake was, from memory, 3,775—higher than any other country in Europe. Last year, 2020, only Greece had a higher UASC intake than we did. All of that shows that the UK is committed to meeting its obligations.

When it comes to supporting asylum seekers, referred to by a number of hon. Members, the provisions we make are more generous than many European countries. We provide accommodation and free health care. Council tax and utilities are paid for. There is free education for those under 18, and a cash allowance is paid in addition, which has been endorsed by the courts as adequate to cover essential costs. We are meeting our obligations. That system as a whole is extremely expensive, partly because of the backlog, which I will come to. It costs about £1 billion a year, so we are spending a huge amount of money supporting the asylum-seeking population. Those measures we are taking are more generous than most other European countries.

Hon. Members referred to the “New Plan for Immigration”, a policy statement published a few months ago, and the Nationality and Borders Bill, which was introduced yesterday. Second Reading will be shortly before the summer recess, so we will have the opportunity to debate that more fully in a few weeks’ time. I would like to make a couple of points regarding the policy statement and the Bill. The Bill is intended to be fair to those who are genuinely in need but firm where people are trying to abuse the system. By fair, we mean continuing to commit to that resettlement programme. We have already continued the resettlement programme beyond the 20,000 people I mentioned earlier. The VPRS 20,000 commitment was met in February of this year, a few months than expected because of coronavirus. We are still resettling people under the replacement UK resettlement scheme.

[Navendu Mishra]

I appreciate the figures that the Minister is quoting. What does he feel about the contribution the German Government made in accepting more than 1 million people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq? How does he compare that to the UK figures?

[Chris Philp]

The German scheme was not a resettlement scheme. What Angela Merkel did briefly in 2015 was simply declare that their borders were open. About 1 million people irregularly just crossed into Germany, many of whom were not from Syria or Afghanistan. That was not a resettlement scheme; that was essentially mass illegal migration. With our resettlement scheme, which we do properly in partnership with the UNHCR, we go directly to dangerous places around Syria, although we plan to expand that in future. We identify people in need of protection and bring them to the UK from dangerous places such as Syria, or near Syria, rather than have them make dangerous, illegal journeys across Europe first. That is the right way to do it. We are committing to safe and legal routes and to being fair to people in genuine need via the Bill, but at the same time it is important that we are firm where people abuse the system.

There are problems with our legal system, to which the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) referred. The legal system often gets protracted in the most extraordinary way when people make repeated claims often over a period of years, many of which turn out to be without merit, and yet they can do that repeatedly, which does not serve anybody’s interest. Partly as a result of that, there are now for the first time ever more than 10,000 foreign national offenders circulating in the community, which is an unacceptable situation that we intend to act on.

It is worth saying a word about illegal migration. When people come here from France—I am thinking about the small boats—that journey is unnecessary, because somebody coming from France is not directly fleeing a war zone. Calais, and France more generally, is not a dangerous place. They do not need to leave France to claim protection or asylum because France has a well-functioning asylum system, and so does Germany, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Italy and the other European countries that people have passed through. No one needs to cross the English channel in a rubber dinghy to claim asylum. They should claim it ideally in the first safe place that they arrive in, which would include France.

Such journeys are dangerous. People have died. A family of five, including an 18-month-old boy, died trying to cross the channel last October. There have been incidents where ruthless people smugglers who take money to facilitate illegal routes have threatened people with guns, including a family that was separated because the people smuggler they had paid to smuggle them into the country turned on them. We should all seek to shut down those routes. It is not humanitarian to have people smugglers paid to smuggle people across the channel. It is dangerous and unnecessary, and we should stop it. Routes into the country should be safe and legal, not dangerous and illegal, and that is the objective of the Nationality and Borders Bill, which I am sure we will debate at length in a few weeks’ time.

Specifically on delays in the asylum system, it is true to say that the delays are considerably higher now than they were a year ago. A great deal of that is due to the disruption caused to the asylum decision-making system by covid, which has obviously affected many areas of our life. It has affected us here in Parliament. We are still sitting here wearing masks and having remote proceedings. It has affected the NHS, our call system, all of our national life, and the asylum system has been affected in the same way.

For some months last year, asylum interviews stopped entirely because it was considered unsafe to have a face-to-face asylum interview. People who worked in asylum decision-making offices, including in my own borough of Croydon and elsewhere in Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds and other places, were not able to go into the office in the normal way to take asylum decisions and conduct interviews, and that has been enormously disruptive over, roughly speaking, the past year and three months, which means that the number of decisions taken in the past year has been dramatically lower, and we have not yet fully recovered.

We are still sitting here wearing masks, and the asylum decision-making process has not fully recovered either, which means the backlog and delays have built up. I agree with the points made by hon. Members that the delays are not what we want to see at all. For those whose claims will be granted, clearly we do not want to see them kept in limbo for protracted periods of time. If they are going to have their asylum claim granted, it is much better that it is done quickly so that they can move on with their lives. Equally, if the asylum claim is rejected, we should then look to move them to the country of origin quickly, because if someone’s claim is not genuine, it is only right and fair that they are removed. Whether it is accepted or rejected, we need faster decision making. That is a completely fair point.

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[Navendu Mishra]

I am incredibly grateful to all hon. Members who contributed to the debate and brought many powerful stories from constituency casework. I thank the Minister for his contribution, although I must highlight that he did not comment on the Aspen card disaster and people being left without food or hygiene products, or on my remarks on the special requirements for women asylum seekers fleeing domestic abuse and rape. The one-size-fits-all approach simply does not work. Asylum seekers and refugees are five times more likely than British nationals to have serious mental health issues.

Clearly, there is a lot of appetite among MPs for the Government to lift the ban on people working. Just over £5 a day is simply unacceptable. We also want to see an end to the toxic and divisive language from the Home Office, the Home Secretary and some MPs on the Government Benches. Treating people like insects is not acceptable; everyone deserves decency and respect. We also want proper financial support for local authorities that support asylum seekers. We have a system whereby some local authorities support asylum seekers and will accept them, while others do not—that needs to be changed. We need reform to the system.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Safe Streets for All

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

The Queen’s Speech was another opportunity for the Government to provide proper funding for our public services and make our streets safer, after a decade of cuts which has led to rising crime across the nation. Once again, this Government have failed to grasp that opportunity.

The Secretary of State opened this debate by stating that

“no one… should be made to feel unsafe when walking our streets.”

Well, the fact is that the Home Secretary talks a good game, but her rhetoric does not match up with the reality. Indeed, last year, research by her own Department named the falling number of police officers since 2010 as a “contributory factor” to the rising number of murders in Britain, alongside drugs and terror attacks. In 2019, the current Metropolitan Police Commissioner was forced to admit that there was a link between violent crime on the streets and police numbers, particularly in relation to rising knife crime.

The Government have said they will provide 20,000 new officers by 2022. However, that will only serve to plug some of the hole left by the 21,000 police that were cut between 2010 and 2019. Furthermore, it will mean thousands of new and inexperienced officers being out on duty, which is far from a like-for-like replacement. It is little more than taking with one hand and giving with the other. We can only assume that the decision to return the police force to numbers similar to those of more than a decade ago is an acknowledgement by this Government that police austerity has failed. Indeed, there is a direct parallel between the fall in police numbers and violent crime rising in every police force over the past 11 years, with violent crime up by 116% and the number of violent crime suspects down by 26%.

This Government’s failed approach has had a direct impact on police and crime figures in my own constituency of Stockport and right across Greater Manchester. Recently I met representatives from Stockport Council, Greater Manchester police and Stockport Homes to discuss incidents in the local community. My special thanks go to the brilliant antisocial behaviour team at Stockport Homes led by Sinead and Clare. At the time I was reassured by the measures that had been put in place at a local level. I pay tribute to the hard work of Superintendent Marcus Noden and Inspector Ian Ashenden of Greater Manchester police’s Stockport division, as well as the entire team at Stockport police, for supporting our community. I am also grateful to the teams at Stockport Homes and Stockport Council for working alongside my office in supporting victims of antisocial behaviour.

But the brutal truth is that many of these organisations are facing an uphill battle, with many budgets having been pared down to the bone, and these shoestring budgets are being stretched even further in the face of rising crime. To take just one example, research by Greater Manchester police revealed that Stockport ranks second in the region in vehicle nuisance incident logs relating to off-road bikes. Despite this, since 2010 the Government have cut the grant they provide to Greater Manchester by £215 million, and as a result we now have 2,000 fewer bobbies on the beat on our streets and 1,000 fewer support staff. This is nothing short of scandalous and is compounded by the fact that the Government support to Stockport Council has been slashed, further harming community drives to cut crime.

We cannot overlook the impact that Government cuts have had on community groups and organisations across the country, including youth services, mental health services, our probation service, and other preventive services. Cutting these services has clearly had a significant effect on crime. Our communities should no longer be blighted by this Government’s chronic underfunding of police and community programmes: they deserve far, far better.

Asylum Seekers and Permission to Work

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Neil Coyle]

I agree, the Government should prioritise English language training to overcome the language barrier. We have seen a drop in the availability of English language teaching and training, and that needs to come back.

The point about it being time to change is really important, because Lift the Ban’s research showed that one in seven of the people seeking asylum have experience of working in health and social care. We have a shortfall in those sectors, and in any normal year we should be welcoming people and getting them into those jobs as quickly as possible. In the context of a global pandemic, there is simply no excuse for denying this workforce a chance to get on with those jobs, which we need more than ever. I hope today the Minister will talk us through how he will be fast-tracking those with health and social care backgrounds, in particular, into jobs.

We need more nurses and medical practitioners, and people with that skilled background are going through an inhumane process—state-sponsored destitution on £5.66 a day or £39.62 a week. I hope that the Minister will listen to campaigners and tell us when that rate will be increased, and why it has not yet been increased to help people protect themselves, their families and the broader community in response to covid-19.

There is evidence that this policy has left people vulnerable to exploitation and criminals. Even in Home Office-run hostels, gangs target these people because they know they are desperate for cash and income. This is a Home Office policy—the Department responsible for law and order and tackling crime has a policy that results in an increase in crime.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I will be brief. Britain, our country, has a proud history of supporting people fleeing war and persecution, and the use of language is very important. It is important to remember that asylum seekers are people; they are fellow human beings and they need to be treated with respect, dignity and fair process. Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason so many hon. Members on Opposition Benches are alarmed by inaction by this Government is that this Government and the Home Office were the architects of the hostile environment that led to so much damage to the fabric of society?

[Neil Coyle]

I think that there is cross-party support for this, and I will come back to the subject of the broader public.

Before I leave the subject of occupations, the Government’s list of approved proficiencies includes classical ballet dancer or skilled orchestral musician—so those are okay, but for other professions, where we desperately need people, people are being delayed in getting into those jobs. I hope the Minister will commit to overhaul the shortage occupation list system; he will have public support for that. British Future found that 71% of the British public supports the right to work after six months—public opinion will be on the Government’s side should they introduce the policy.

I want to talk about the situation in Southwark. We have 189 dispersed asylum seekers housed across the borough, and the council has a commitment in its refreshed plan to making Southwark a borough of sanctuary, working with community groups and partners to help and support refugee and migrant asylum seekers in the borough, and campaigning to end the hostile environment, which the Government told us they wanted to end. They told us they were dismantling the hostile environment, and yet here it is alive and kicking and damaging people’s lives, leaving people destitute.

I want to celebrate the work of the Southwark day centre for asylum seekers, which does a tremendous job and has very strong links to this House; the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) are both patrons of it. People from the centre tell me that the majority of the people they see do not have the right to work and are dependent on charities and faith groups. Churches and mosques are picking up the slack because we have an irresponsible Government leaving people without support. Some of the people they are supporting are not even covered by the asylum support scheme and live beyond destitution. They have confirmed that 40% of the asylum seekers they are helping wait longer than 12 months for a decision—40% of the people they see. I see these people in my casework and surgery sessions—not face-to-face at the moment, although I do make exceptions, so if anyone does need to see me, we can do in a covid-secure way in my constituency office.

Channel Crossings in Small Boats

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment, and I think that he will not be disappointed by the legislative plans the Government are formulating.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

What steps are the Government taking to ensure that more accommodation settings for migrants are not targeted by far-right groups, as was the case in Coventry recently?

[Chris Philp]

I unreservedly condemn the incidents that the hon. Gentleman is describing, and the police have the Home Office’s full support in protecting people from such unacceptable abuse.

Local Government

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

As it was the fourth annual Firefighters Memorial Day yesterday, I wish to pay tribute to the life-saving work of all those who are part of our fire service and put their lives on the line for all of us on a daily basis. I also wish to thank Mayor Andy Burnham and the deputy mayor for the important work they have done on fire safety. It is now almost three years since the tragic Grenfell Tower fire, where 72 people lost their lives due to a combination of dangerous cladding and inadequate fire safety strategy. Despite the ongoing inquiry and the steps many councils have taken to improve fire safety, Greater Manchester continues to have 78 high-rise buildings that have had to adopt interim safety measures because of serious fire safety deficiencies and the Government’s failure to act quickly enough, more than 1,000 days since the Grenfell tragedy. With people rightly concerned about the situation, many have taken matters into their own hands, by organising to demand immediate action by the Government. For example, the Manchester Cladiators are a group of residents who formed last year to represent those in Greater Manchester who have been impacted by the cladding scandal, including by having the flammable aluminium composite material cladding that was used on Grenfell Tower. They have been campaigning tirelessly to make their voice heard amid continuing Government delays and indecision, and I take this opportunity to applaud them for the work they have done to keep this issue at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

As for the Government, there is a reason they have been slow to act. Quite simply, it comes down to a decade of austerity. They have ravaged central funding to fire and rescue services across the UK. For example, between 2010 and 2016 alone, the Conservative Government slashed funding by 28% in real terms, and that was compounded by a further cut of 15% by 2020. That has had a crippling effect, resulting in 11,000 fewer fire service personnel, reducing the fire service’s capacity by a staggering 20% and putting people’s lives in further jeopardy. In Greater Manchester alone, in the past five years critical funding has fallen by more than 15%. In cash terms, that amounts to a cut of about £10 million that our service has had to absorb. Since 2010, there has been a one-third reduction.

It is not just reducing bureaucracy and red tape that is cutting the firefighters who battle blazes and save lives on a daily basis. In Greater Manchester, there are now 29% fewer firefighters, combined with a 14% reduction in life-saving fire equipment. The picture is truly bleak. Is it any wonder, therefore, that in 2018 the UK faced the highest number of fire-related fatalities in almost a decade, which directly correlated with the increasing cuts that the fire service has faced? Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has attempted to mitigate that by committing to the recruitment of 108 firefighters, but even that only goes part of the way to redressing the balance and does not bring the levels up to what they were in 2010. In addition, central Government cuts have left Greater Manchester Combined Authority facing a situation where there is no escaping the fact that response times will be longer, putting more lives at risk.

At a time like this, we need to make sure that the past decade of austerity is reversed. It is completely unacceptable that in 2020, residents continue to live in housing that cannot protect them, while their fire services continue to face cuts that put them further at risk. The situation needs to be urgently addressed. As we have seen with the coronavirus crisis, underfunding key services leaves them vulnerable and ill equipped to handle further challenges. I call on the Government to do all they can immediately to reverse the year-on-year cuts, to provide adequate funding so that our fire service is fit for purpose and to ensure that all housing, including high-rise towers, is safe to live in.

Retail Workers: Protection

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury]

I agree. Certainly, lone working should not occur in such situations. We need responsible employers to ensure that that does not happen.

Staff who fear for their safety and do not believe they will be protected are less likely to challenge those who seek to get their hands on something they should not. We ask retail workers to do an important civic role in policing the sale of restricted items. It is a role we often forget they have to do. Surely, it is right that we protect them while they do it.

The current sentencing guidelines for all types of assault take into account as an aggravating factor the fact that the victim was

“providing a service to the public”.

However, that is one of 19 aggravating factors, which are measured against 11 mitigating factors. The experience of retail workers is that the impact of an assault on their lives is not fully taken into account during sentencing. They feel they do not receive appropriate justice. A separate offence of assaulting someone serving the public would be simpler to determine. I have seen multiple cases that show that the Government need to do more to encourage prosecutions and appropriate sentences that do not leave victims feeling abandoned. Creating a specific offence would also send a message that violence and threats against retail workers are not acceptable.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Having been a retail worker for six years, I have come across some of the experiences my hon. Friend has shared. He referred to research by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. In June last year it conducted one of its surveys of thousands of retail workers, which highlighted that 62% of retail workers have been victims of verbal or physical abuse. Does he agree that abuse has no place in any workplace, and that retail workers must be respected with proper protection of the law?

[Mike Amesbury]

I do, and I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful contribution.

I know that the Minister will point to the call for evidence that closed in June last year as a sign that the Government are listening to retail workers about this issue. I am pleased that that call for evidence took place, following hard work by my colleague David Hanson, the former Member for Delyn. I am sure that people across the House will recognise his campaigning on this issue.