Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The implementation of end-to-end encryption in a way that intentionally blinds tech companies to content on their platforms will have a disastrous impact on public safety, and we remain seriously concerned with Facebook’s end-to-end encryption proposals. The safety and security of the public is at the heart of this issue, and Facebook must continue to work with us to embed the safety of the public in its system designs. Companies have a responsibility to prevent the proliferation of child sexual abuse imagery and to protect children from predators on their platforms.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to tackle scam callers.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

The Government will not tolerate criminals lining their pockets while causing serious financial and emotional harm to victims. We are working closely with the industry, regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups to crack down on scam callers. Additionally, since its launch last year, the National Cyber Security Centre has shut down over 50,000 scams and taken down almost 100,000 websites.

[Neil Parish]

Since the onset of the pandemic, many of my constituents have been contacting me to report an influx of fraudulent or scam telephone calls. The fraudsters behind these malicious enterprises often target elderly or vulnerable individuals, posing as Government agencies, telecom companies, banks or pension providers. Sadly, too many of these cases result in the scammers convincing, or indeed coercing, individuals to part with their hard-earned savings. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must clamp down on this dreadful criminal activity and ensure that there is somewhere that victims can go to immediately to get help?

[Kit Malthouse]

As our lives have moved increasingly online, so has crime, as my hon. Friend rightly says. Can there be any Member in the Chamber who has not received a dodgy email or text or even a recorded message on their telephone, which is becoming increasingly frequent? It is typical of my hon. Friend to point out the particular vulnerability of elderly people, who are often coming to grips with technology—many have had to do so over the past year or so for the first time in their lives—and being taken advantage of. He is right to say that we need to do all we can to help them, and through the economic crime victim care unit we are doing exactly that. We are working with the banking sector to ensure that victims are not left out of pocket through no fault of their own. Critically, we can all help the fight by reporting these emails and text messages, and I want to take a moment to say that anyone who gets a suspicious email should please forward it to the email address [e-mail] and anyone who receives a similarly suspicious text should please forward it to 7726. The police and other services will be collating the texts and emails, and when they come from the same source, as they do on many occasions, they will act swiftly to shut it down.

Policing in Devon and Cornwall

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

I am delighted to bring this debate to the House, to present and highlight the incredible work that Devon and Cornwall police do, and to raise a number of the very particular, in some cases unique, challenges that they face. I am delighted to be joined this evening by colleagues from Devon. It is one of the few occasions on which out-and-out co-operation and unity can be seen between Devon and Cornwall Members of Parliament.

I place on record very firmly my thanks to Devon and Cornwall police. Day in and day out, week in and week out, throughout the year they do an incredible job keeping the people of our two counties safe. As I am sure we are all aware, the covid-19 pandemic has brought a great number of new challenges to our police across the country. The pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges for our police, as they have had to adapt to new operational and resource pressures, and to a rapidly changing police environment.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I endorse the fact that it is great to be with Cornwall tonight—not always, but tonight. Seriously, the police are dealing with covid-19 and with lots of tourists coming into our area now. They have a greater challenge than ever, and I very much respect that they police by consent in this country, especially in Devon and Cornwall. Can we ensure that, as our tourists come, they please behave, because that will make the police’s job so much easier?

[Steve Double]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I suspect that not for the first time this evening another Member will make a point that I will go on to make, but I join him in acknowledging the very proactive but sensible way Devon and Cornwall police have approached the pandemic. They have indeed policed with consent, and even though they, I believe, have issued the fourth-highest number of fixed penalty notices in the country—I believe we are currently up to just under 1,000—it has been done in a very sensible way.

The police have continued, I believe, to enjoy the overwhelming support and respect of the people of Devon and Cornwall in the way they have gone about policing this pandemic. I want to say a big thank you to them, and I pay tribute to them. I also want to place on record my great thanks to both our police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, and our chief constable, Shaun Sawyer, for the clear leadership they have provided during these past few months, as it has really helped the police on the ground to carry out their work so effectively. In my own constituency, I want to thank the inspectors in Newquay, Guy Blackford, and in St Austell, Ed Gard and the Cornwall commander, our very own IDS—Ian Drummond-Smith—for the way that they have provided the pragmatic and sensible approach that we have needed. I just want to say thank you to them all.

The image of Devon and Cornwall for most people is that of a picturesque, rural and coastal part of the world where people love to visit for their holidays. Policing in Devon and Cornwall is just as challenging as it is anywhere else in the country—in some ways, it is more so because of its very unique situation. Let me give colleagues an idea: the Devon and Cornwall police force area is the largest in England, covering more than 4,000 square miles. Our emergency services deal with more than a million calls per year, and their work is cut out because we have more than 13,600 miles of road, the highest in the country, 85% of which are rural. As we all know, rural roads are, in fact, the most dangerous and often the most challenging to police. The force area also has the longest coastline in the country. Cornwall itself has 675 miles of beautiful cliffs, beaches and coves. Devon is not quite so great or quite so beautiful, but, equally, that in itself presents a number of incredible challenges to our police force.

Ellison Review

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Undercover policing is an important tool. It is important that the police can use it. Many undercover police officers act very bravely and put themselves at great risk in the work that they do. Such work is important in catching criminals and in protecting the public. We need to ensure that all undercover officers operate with full honesty and integrity, and that there is a clear and appropriate legal and supervisory framework so that the boundaries of that activity are known. Sadly, it is clear from the Ellison review that, in relation to the SDS, there were rather fewer boundaries in that activity than there should have been.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I commend the Home Secretary for her work to root out corruption in the police. Does she agree that we must not only restore public confidence in the police force, but boost the morale of the very good officers who make up the vast majority of the police and ensure that they are seen to be doing a good job?

[Mrs May]

Absolutely. I hope that the majority of police officers, who operate with honesty and integrity day by day, will welcome our commitment to rooting out any corruption or misbehaviour within the police. We owe it to them to ensure that they see that happening and know that we value the work that they do. We want to ensure that all officers operate with honesty and integrity.

Spousal Visas

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I am delighted to have secured this debate on spousal visas, an issue on which the Minister has responded on a number of occasions. On one of the last such occasions, on 19 June in Westminster Hall, he explained that the spousal visa changes had three aims: dealing with fraud, namely, sham marriages; promoting better integration, including English language testing and tests on life in the UK; and preventing visa applicants from becoming a burden to the taxpayer. I do not necessarily have an objection to any of those aims. Indeed, I would like to see a tougher immigration system, but he also said in that debate that the changes are

“about preventing abuse and setting out sensible rules that people can follow.”—[Official Report, 19 June 2013; Vol. 564, c. 275WH.]

The question I wish to raise on behalf of one of my constituents is whether we are in fact following sensible rules, and whether the changes are affecting the people they are designed to impact upon.

This Government inherited the mess in the immigration system left by the previous Government. I, like all Conservative Members, was elected on the basis of having a tough immigration system and that is what I wish to see. In my constituency, however, the failure of the last Government was broadly around European Union immigration, which these rules do nothing to impact upon.

I pay tribute to the Minister, who has had to respond to issues around spousal visas on a number of occasions. He is a very competent Minister and I am sure he will be able to take on board my concerns, which I raise on behalf of one of my constituents, Gary Smith, who lives in Goole.

Gary is 43 and has been married for five years to his Cambodian wife Shantar. They have a three-year-old daughter, Aaliyhh, a British national of course, who currently resides with her mother in Cambodia; they have lived there for five years. Gary and Shantar have been married since 2008. Gary’s wife is a restaurant manager, a qualified teacher and a business partner in a local charity in Cambodia for which Gary used to work. His wife has been able to visit the UK but, unfortunately, because of these visa changes, she is unable to settle here.

Shantar’s visa application has been rejected on a number of grounds. Two of them were technical issues to do with some lost paperwork. The embassy in Cambodia apparently lost her English language certificate, which I have managed to get a copy of, and it is hoped that that problem will be solved. Another issue regards accommodation in the UK, which has been, or is being, resolved.

Unfortunately, Gary, a street sweeper with the East Riding of Yorkshire council, because of his income level, is unable to hit the £18,600 minimum income requirement to bring his wife of five years and the mother of their child to this country. With overtime, Gary earns £17,000 and, being a local government employee, he has had no significant rise for the last three years. He is currently supporting his family in Cambodia, sending out what will shortly amount to £200 a month just for school fees to educate his child, along with other support. That is as opposed to supporting his wife and child in this country. He lives in Goole, and the property in which he lives costs £450 a month. Council tax is less than £100 a month, and in our town there is no question but that on an income of up to £17,000 he could support his wife and child.

Moreover, Gary’s wife has been offered a job in the United Kingdom, and I have a letter from the employer—a very good employer—who says that the skills that she has as a restaurant manager would be greatly needed in the new project that the business is hoping to start in Goole. However, under the rules, the letter offering her a job means nothing and has no impact on the income threshold. Despite the fact that there are huge concerns in Goole about immigration, bearing in mind the fact that up to 25% of its population are EU migrants—that issue is raised regularly—800 Goolies have signed a petition in support of my constituents, and there is real support for Gary on the issue.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for introducing the debate. I have a constituent called Mrs Celia Elizabeth Parr who is married to a doctor from Ecuador, and they have a little child. Mrs Parr lives in Colyton, and she has enough self-employed income, but she has experienced huge problems getting her husband into the country. We very much support tighter immigration controls, but we seem to be stopping people who have a legitimate right to be here putting their family back together again.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I shall come on to the impact that that has had on decent people who just want to bring their family together and make a life here.

In relation to the income rule that has impacted on my constituent, I shall give the House the average incomes in our area, which has a low-wage economy. The average income in the East Riding of Yorkshire is £5 above the threshold. I represent the poorest part of the East Riding, and Gary lives in one of the bottom 25% most deprived areas in the country, so achieving £18,000 is something of which many people in our area can only dream. The average income in inner London is £34,749.

We may have low incomes, but we also have low house prices. The average house price in our area is £150,000, compared with the average in Greater London of £454,000, which is even more than my house cost. Gary could have the same job earning slightly more than that arbitrary £18,600, and he would be able to bring his wife in, despite the fact that he would have greater outgoings and a much lower disposable income than he has by virtue of the fact that he lives in Goole. I am grateful for a figure provided by the Royal College of Nursing to the all-party parliamentary group on migration, which has done a good job on this issue. The RCN points out that the majority of national health service care support workers earn a maximum of £17,253 a year. Anyone who is an NHS care support worker is not allowed to find love outside the country.

Since this issue came to light and I secured the debate, I have learned of several examples of the problem around the country, two of them involving US citizens who have been caught by the requirement. That is what concerns me most. The measure was supposed to impact on sham marriages, but who is it really affecting?

EU Directive on Animal Experimentation

Neil Parish Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on securing the debate and on his energetic chairmanship of the all-party group. I may not be able to give him as much detail as he might like because, as he will appreciate, I am standing in—no doubt inadequately—for the Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), and because she and the Home Office more widely are still looking at the details of the transposition, but I will try to answer as many of his detailed questions as I can.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government recognise that the regulation of animal experiments is of significant public interest. We are strongly committed to ensuring the best possible standards of animal welfare and protection for animals used for scientific purposes.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My last report in the European Parliament, before I retired from it, took the directive through to First Reading. One of the problems in getting the agreement of 27 countries is that the regulations often have to be reduced in order to get them agreed by all member states. I would like to put it on record that I believe that we have some of the best research, done under the best welfare requirements in the world, and I do not want to see that watered down. In many cases I like to see the reduction of regulation, but on this occasion it is essential to keep our strong rules in place, because we are dealing with animal welfare and the quality of the science. I want that reassurance from the Government.

Border Control Scheme

Neil Parish Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Is it not necessary for us to bring in these tighter controls, because of the 2.2 million net immigration between 1997 and 2009 under the last Government?

[Damian Green]

There are two separate issues here, both of which need addressing. One is the vast number of people who arrived legally under the previous Government’s conscious policy of increasing immigration to unsustainable levels. Secondly, there is what we are discussing this morning—the fact that our borders were not sufficiently secure. Just as important as bringing down the legal numbers is making our borders more secure by a number of methods, such as the use of technology, the pilots that we operated in the summer and changing how we look at private flights. The various actions that we are taking are all designed to make the border safer.