Child Abuse Inquiry

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his proposal. The process for a statutory inquiry is that it is for the chairman, once they are in place, to determine whether the inquiry should become a statutory one. I have made it absolutely clear—I do not think that I can be any clearer—that if they feel that that is necessary in order to compel witnesses and have the other powers of a statutory inquiry, the Government will respond to that.

On the sort individual who should be appointed, the important aspect is to have somebody in whom everybody dealing with the inquiry can have confidence and, crucially, in whom survivors can have confidence. When she wrote to me, Fiona Woolf said that it was that issue that led to her resignation.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

In making the progress that we all want, will the Home Secretary consider the names I will send to her of two people who are sensitive and greatly experienced in this field, but who cannot in any way be classed with the metropolitan elite? We should not move away from this matter without considering the serious situation in which the first of the seven versions of the letter, which was not presented to the Home Affairs Committee, gave the impression of a close friendship between the Brittans and Fiona Woolf, while the final version suggested that they were almost strangers. Was that not an attempt by the civil service to mislead the Committee and, by doing so, to mislead the House? What is she going to do about that?

[Mrs May]

I do not believe that there was any attempt to mislead the House. The letter that I received was the letter that Fiona Woolf agreed. I believe that she intended in that letter to be as transparent as possible about the nature of her relationship with the noble Lord Brittan. I am sure that many Members of the House have proposals about individuals who would be appropriate for the chairmanship, and I will certainly look at the names that the hon. Gentleman wishes to send to me.

UK Drugs Policy

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Wollaston]

Legal highs are a rather separate issue. I agree we must consider that they may have unintended consequences, but I would not follow that as a direct cause or link. I do not agree with that.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Wollaston]

May I make a little progress and then I will come back to the hon. Gentleman?

I would like to focus on cannabis for a moment—that is the issue I have most correspondence about—and on its harms. Cannabis is often presented as somehow a harmless product, and if we compare it with alcohol and consider the numbers of deaths and injuries, alcohol undoubtedly currently causes far greater harm in our society. However, before we assume that it must therefore be acceptable to legalise cannabis, I want to focus a little on its harms. In the short term, there is double the risk of a car crash for people driving under the influence of cannabis, and in the longer term, one in six young users will become dependent. It simply not true to say that cannabis is not a drug of dependence—it is.

For me, this is about the impact of cannabis on young users and teenagers, because they will double their risk of a psychotic illness. In my career I have met many families and young people whose lives have been completely devastated as a result of psychosis—I come to this debate from that viewpoint and my real concern about what psychosis does to people, because many of them did not recover. That is particularly important for those who have a family history of psychotic illness. For example, if someone has a first degree relative with a history of schizophrenia and they start using cannabis as a teenager, they will double their risk of a psychotic illness from 10% to 20%—a significant increase.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley). We are both old lags in this debate and were both mentioned in the drugs report of 2002.

I am more optimistic than I have been during the past 27 years in which I have made 28 speeches on this matter in this House. At one time we had an annual debate, which was an amazing ritual. The Government, whoever they were, said how wonderfully and successfully things were going, and the Opposition would say, “Yes, we agree.” One moment I prize was when, about half way through, both Front-Bench speakers had to leave the Chamber for a fix—they were both chain smokers. They saw nothing wrong in denouncing young people and then going off to any of the 16 bars in this place and having a whisky and a cigarette. They would have a couple of paracetamol in their pockets for the headaches they were going to have the next morning. They could not see any contradiction between that and laying down laws for young people.

The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) talked about the myth that the use of drugs has gone down because of Government action. There is absolutely no correlation. Let us look at the past 43 years. When the Drugs Misuse Act 1971 was passed with the support of all parties—always a worrying thing—there were fewer than 1,000 heroin and cocaine addicts in the whole country. The last figure I saw was 320,000. There has been a steady increase over the years. The reason there has now been a decline in cannabis use and other activities by young people is that they have a new addiction. They have an almost universal addiction to their Tablets and iPhones—that is where their attention is going. It is all to do with fashion. Drug taking might be cool one year and naff the following year. It all depends on that.

The hon. Lady made a point about Portugal, which is a great success story. It changed its policy in 2001. Within a very short time the number of deaths went down by 50%,and it does not have the cost of prosecutions and so on. It has been a continuing success. The change in the Czech Republic is relatively recent and we have yet to see the results, but there are encouraging signs.

I have to apologise to the Minister. I was so ungracious as to believe that he was going to follow the path of all the other Ministers with responsibility for drugs, including some very distinguished ones. I remember when the beloved Mo Mowlam was in charge of drugs. Her letters would comprise the civil service reply and a little note on the top, written by her, saying, “See you in the Strangers Bar to tell you what I really think.” [Laughter.] When the current Minister came before the Home Affairs Committee, I asked him whether he had had the compulsory lobotomy to become a Minister with responsibility for drugs in exchange for his red box. It was not true! The Minister stuck to his views, and here we have the first ever intelligent document on drugs from Government in 43 years—the only one that is evidence-based. We have had evidence-free, prejudice-rich policies for years from politicians who were cowardly. They would not take on the tabloids. Some years ago, the Liberal Democrats decided that they were going to pursue the policy that we are encouraging today and they were denounced by The Sun for going to pot.

There is cowardice because of prejudice, but we know that public opinion is way ahead of us. The public know the stupidity and impotence of our drugs policy. I regularly ask how many prisons in Britain are drug free. I always get the answer that there are none. If we cannot keep hard drugs out of prisons, how on earth can we keep them out of schools, clubs or anywhere else? It is a pretence.

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

Women go into prisons like Holloway drug-free and come out with a drug habit, such are the difficulties of keeping drugs out of prison.

[Paul Flynn]

There is a splendid book called “Invisible Women” about Holloway prison, which I commend to everyone. It tells the terrible story of what is going on there.

Another point about prison is that one medicine that was given to young women who had been badly treated and were mutilating themselves was largactil. There was a name for them in prison: they were called muppets. This was a drug for those who had serious mental health problems. The whole sorry story of drugs in prison is one of abuse by many medicinal drugs. A blind eye was turned to cannabis use because it kept a lid on things. If prisoners were on alcohol they were aggressive, but if they were on cannabis they would give everyone a hug. That is how the prisons liked it. The prison policies pursued by all parties are completely hypocritical and they illustrate the futility of prohibition.

I received a call before I came to the House from someone talking about the use of medicinal cannabis, which I have supported for a very long time. It is not that I want to use it. I have never used any illegal drug and I have no plans to use cannabis. The point is the irrationality of the Government’s stand. Cannabis in its natural form is one of the oldest drugs in the world. It has been used on all continents for 5,000 years. Now, because we are nervous and it is an illegal drug, we allow people to have only little bits of cannabis. Dronabinol, nabilone or TAC are available, but they contain only a small number of ingredients from the hundreds in any natural substance.

[Mike Thornton]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is very strange that a doctor can prescribe heroin in the form of diamorphine, a controlled and very dangerous drug, but not cannabis?

[Paul Flynn]

Indeed, and I would like to get on to that. We have just been involved in a war, which I mentioned at business questions. We went into Helmand province five years after we went into Afghanistan. We had lost only two soldiers by that time, but our main purpose in going in—hon. Members should read the speeches from 2006; I have just put them on the website—was all about stopping heroin being grown and ending the drug crop. In 2006, 90% of our heroin came from Afghanistan; yet here we are, years later, and 90% of our heroin still comes from Afghanistan. There is a difference, however: now it is cheaper because there is more of it. The efforts to control it were utterly futile, yet there is a shortage of morphine throughout the world—another issue that we have not addressed.

I come back to the point that we should look at the chemistry. Nobody knows what the effect of the various ingredients of natural cannabis is. It might well be that ingredient No. 36 neutralises ingredient No. 428. We do not know, and by stopping people having a natural drug that has proved to be beneficial, we are imposing torment on many who have serious problems, such as multiple sclerosis and other diseases that we know can be cured. It is prejudice that has driven our policies for all these years. I am heartened today by the Minister, by his courage and by the report, which is the only report—I repeat: we have waited 43 years for this—that is based on the truth and the evidence. Marvellous things are happening in other countries throughout the world, and there is a recognition that prohibition has been a curse.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

In the litany of good signs that the hon. Gentleman is seeing, I am quite certain that he will have read the article by Sir William Patey, who was our ambassador in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2012. He says:

“For the sake of both Afghans and British citizens, senior politicians must take responsibility for the failings of global prohibition, and take control of the drug trade through legal regulation.”

When someone like him says that, it is another reason to sit up and take notice.

[Paul Flynn]

That is absolutely right. We are following what happened with the prohibition of alcohol in America, where the deaths came from the use of distilled spirit. The content could not be controlled, and it was poisonous. We now have people taking drugs—often in the most concentrated form and in the most dangerous way—that are produced by people who are irresponsible. I believe that if we did not have prohibition, people would be using heroin beer and other things by now. In Amsterdam, they take their cannabis without smoking, because the danger—as with tobacco, where it is not the nicotine—is in smoking the substance. The best way would be if we relaxed about this and if people could have their drugs of choice—all dangerous and to be avoided if at all possible, but we cannot stop people seeking relaxation and comfort from drugs; that will go on. The way to do it is to end prohibition and for a courageous Government to reform our laws.

Foreign National Offenders (Removal)

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have had to deal with the system we inherited. We have made significant changes to it, which are already starting to show progress, and I am sure we will see considerable progress in future as a result of further changes we have made, particularly on the legal side, as he indicates, such as reducing the number of routes of appeal from 17 to four.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does the Home Secretary not realise that the report states that more than one in three of the failures to deport are the result of failures within her Department? The Government have been in control for four and a half years now. Can she tell us the precise date when they will stop blaming the previous Labour Government, or the next Labour Government, and take responsibility for this ineptocracy of their own creation?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman might like to note that the report states that over the past two years removals have increased

“largely because of a change in the Department’s approach to deportation…following concerted caseworking efforts and a change in the Department’s approach…to ensure that all FNOs are considered by a central team for removal, not just those who met the deportation criteria.”

We are taking action. As I have just said, we will continue to look at what more we can do to carry on making progress and ensure that we deal with the challenges we face.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Certainly, I and, I am sure, the whole House would want to congratulate those British Muslims in Worcester and across the whole country who have stood up and said that the actions of ISIL and, indeed, other terrorist organisations are not taking place in their name. Indeed, across the country, it has been good to see increasing numbers of Muslims coming forward with that message. I was very pleased recently to share with a number of Muslim women from across the UK the inspired programme of #makingastand, saying that this is, again, “Not in our name.”

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

ISIL’s brutal and barbaric acts continue to demonstrate the very deadly threat that we face from terrorism. More than 500 British citizens have travelled to fight in Syria and Iraq. The Government have already taken action to combat these threats, as I have just outlined, by toughening the royal prerogative power that allows us to remove the passports of British citizens who want to travel abroad to engage in terrorism. We have used it to stop people travelling to Syria in over 20 cases. So far this year, just over 100 people have been arrested for Syria-related offences, 24 have been charged and five have been successfully prosecuted. We must do more. That is why we have announced plans to introduce legislation to deal with this increased terrorist threat, and we will engage in cross-party consultation on these proposals and intend to introduce this urgently needed legislation at the earliest opportunity.

[Paul Flynn]

The police and courts recommended that an asylum seeker and London gang leader should be deported because he represented a danger to the public, especially to young children. He was not deported; he was relocated to my constituency, where in the summer he was arrested in possession of an illegal drug in a children’s play area. Is the Government’s failure to deport Mr Joland Giwa typical of their immigration policy, which is boastful in promises but impotent in action?

[Mrs May]

That is a bit rich coming from an Opposition Member. [Interruption.] I will answer the question. This Government have tightened up and improved our ability to deport people from this country, but there remain certain countries to which it is difficult for us to deport people. That is why we have continued the programme of deportation with assurances from a number of countries, to enhance our ability to deport people. There are still a number of countries where it is not possible for us to deport people, but we continue to work on that to make sure that we can do so in the future.

Child Abuse

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

On the timetable, as I indicated, I would expect the inquiry panel work to go beyond the general election. It is necessary that it has sufficient time to do its job properly and comprehensively, but I undertake to have a progress update report presented to Parliament before May 2015. The deadline or final timetable is something that needs to be discussed with the chairman of the panel, because it will be partly determined by the way they intend to operate the work of the panel. It will also be determined by the progress of the criminal investigations, because we do not want to jeopardise them.

The investigator certainly did not find any evidence that the files were, in any shape or form, in existence, but I think what I am saying is that there is no categorical evidence that they had been destroyed, because that had not been recorded—hence the issues that have been raised about the recording of matters relating to records.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Sir Jimmy Savile was the honoured invited guest at 11 new year’s eve parties hosted by a Prime Minister. He was given the keys to two hospitals by Health Ministers. He was a trusted friend of royalty. Can we know whether the intelligence services had surveillance on this man? If they did put in reports, why was no action taken on them?

[Mrs May]

In response to an earlier question, I addressed the issue of my expectation of the panel being able to have as much access to Government papers as possible. On the wider issue the hon. Gentleman raises, this is precisely why we need to look back at these cases and ask why somebody who was serially abusing a large number of people—children and adults—over a period of time was able to do so while continuing to be feted by society at large.

Passport Applications

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I think that goes to the heart of the problems faced by a lot of families, who are experiencing stress and delay, but also having to pay for it.

The Home Secretary has said that British residents will be able to get a free fast-track upgrade if they are due to travel. Again, that is welcome, but even that is causing problems. One family who drove to Durham told us:

“My husband queried the fee and they said it’s not true about the fee waiver and it was just a rumour.”

Another was told that if they wanted to fast-track, they would have to cancel their existing application and that that would take 14 days. People who submitted their application online are being told that they cannot get a free upgrade. Even for a fast track, people have to make an appointment. One family were told that the only appointment in the next three weeks was in Durham.

According to the helpline today, the soonest that anyone can get an appointment anywhere in the country is Friday in Durham or Sunday in London, and even then it could take them an extra week to get their passport. Anyone who wants the premium service—to get their passport the next day, because they are about to travel urgently—will still have to pay. According to the Home Secretary, only the fast-track upgrade is free, not the premium service, despite the fact that some people applied for their passports many weeks ago and are now right up against the line.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Did she notice a Monty Python-esque moment in the Home Affairs Committee yesterday? It was very similar to the salesman’s explanation that the parrot was not dead, but was very deeply asleep. When the chief executive was asked about the logjam, he said there was no logjam. When he was shown published photographs of rooms of chairs and tables filled with passport applications, he said, “That’s not a logjam; that’s work in progress.” It was pure Monty Python.

[Yvette Cooper]

We have heard that point made by Ministers, the Home Office press office and officials—“Backlog? No backlog.” Yet that is not the experience of families across the country.

What about those who have paid already, one of the key issues in our motion? Martin Cook from Ipswich, who applied many weeks ago, before the three-week deadline, has now had to pay £65 to upgrade, so that he and his wife can go on a romantic break to Prague. Audrey Strong’s 94-year-old mother—whom my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy)mentioned—has paid the extra to upgrade so that she can go on her cruise. She feels like she is being held to ransom. After weeks of delay, Anne Dannerolle from Hull paid for the upgrade to next-day delivery. Her passport still did not come and she had to drive a 200-mile round trip just hours before her flight. Roy Pattison, a security guard from Worcester, applied seven weeks ago, before his holiday to Turkey. Finally, on Friday he paid to upgrade to the fast-track service, but his passport still did not arrive on time.

The Passport Office has made money out of those families. Too early to get the Home Secretary’s fast-track offer, but too late to wait any longer before they travel, they have been forced to pay out. I therefore urge the Home Secretary to agree today that those families who have already had to pay out because of her delays should also be refunded the cost of their fast-track service.

We still do not know when things will be back to normal. Families still do not know how long they can expect to wait. We still do not know whether the Home Office has a grip, but families want answers now. We want to know when things will be back to normal. The Home Secretary should look again at the system for processing overseas passports, because it is not working. She should look again at the staffing, to ensure that she has enough staff in place to get the backlog down fast. She should look again at other measures to get through the summer, such as more support for check and send to reduce errors at this difficult time. She should look again at the fast-track and premium services, because they do not seem to be working well enough. She should also look again at compensating people who have paid extra fees through no fault of their own.

Would it be too much to ask for a little bit of humility from the Home Secretary when she stands up today, given the holidays she has put at risk? Yesterday the chief executive of the Passport Office gave an apology; last week the Prime Minister gave an apology; so can we have an apology from the Home Secretary, as the Minister in charge of it all? Why doesn’t she begin her speech with that apology to those families now?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn]

Sadly, the Newport office is closed. It is no longer a fully fledged office. It does not have the ability to deal with postal applications. In this crisis, hundreds of people have been forced to go to Liverpool to get their passports. We have half a passport office in Newport, which is a disgrace, as Wales deserves at least one fully fledged passport office.

[Mrs May]

Obviously, I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s very particular constituency interest in this issue, but he does make the statement, as others do, that the Newport passport office has closed. The Newport office continues to operate as a customer support centre with 150 full-time equivalent posts.

I also want to address the allegations about a backlog and this issue about the figures. It is usual during peak periods for HMPO to operate with high numbers of passport applications in the system at any one time. This is normal work in progress. There can be 350,000 to 400,000 applications being processed at any given time. The overwhelming majority are dealt with within the three-week service standard.

As things stand, HMPO is receiving up to 150,000 domestic applications each week, and around 9,000 overseas applications. Around 480,000 applications are currently being dealt with, compared with 350,000 to 450,000 in normal circumstances. The figure will vary from week to week depending on passports issued, applications withdrawn and applications received. I should be clear about the figures. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford said that there was a backlog of hundreds of thousands, but there is no backlog of 480,000 cases. That number represents the total number of cases in HMPO’s system at present.

As the Prime Minister told the House last week, there is a number of straightforward cases that would ordinarily have been processed within the three-week service time that are not being processed quickly enough. That number, as of the beginning of this week, is approximately 50,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I should start by putting on the record my regret for those four constituents who contacted me because they were experiencing difficulties. Three of them were dealt with immediately and just one had to wait one extra day for a passport.

I confess to being a little surprised that the Opposition have used this first Opposition day for a debate on this subject, given that the Government have responded so fully over recent days to take the action necessary. In the hour and a half I have been sitting in the Chamber, nobody has answered the question why there has been such unprecedented additional demand. I suggest that in addition to continued falls in inflation and unemployment, the demand for passport renewals and replacements—at its highest for 12 years, with over 350,000 additional applications lodged compared with the same time last year—is a clear sign that overseas travel is higher on the agenda for many businesses and families than could have been anticipated earlier this year.

The Opposition frequently inform us that we should learn the lessons of the past. I agree—it is important that we learn from previous experiences. The Passport Office currently has a considerable number of applications to process, but 15 years ago, under the previous Administration, the number was not 480,000, but 565,000 at the height of the 1999 crisis. But the most important figure is that of the 480,000 cases currently in progress—just 30,000, or six in every hundred, are being dealt with outside the normal three-week waiting time.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Glen]

No. Given the limitations on time and given what the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said earlier, I shall carry on.

More than 500 people missed their travel dates in 1999, and the Government then paid out over £124,000 in compensation for missed holidays, honeymoons and business trips. More than half of all calls failed to get through to the agency. The emergency measures put in place by the then Government cost a total of £12.6 million, including £16,000 spent on umbrellas for people queuing in the rain for hours.

It is important that today we reflect on what happened 15 years ago. It took the Government five months to get a grip of the problem and to put emergency measures in place, in stark contrast to what we have seen from this Home Secretary and this Government. The Government are not simply throwing extra resources at the difficulties; they are taking proportionate steps to reallocate 250 staff and add 650 staff to customer helplines. That action was taken quickly. The wider concerns that have been generated have increased unnecessary calls, leading to an extra administrative burden on the Passport Office. Let us put the situation in context. Between January and May, 99% of passports were issued within four weeks. That is a pretty impressive outcome.

As I said earlier, four constituents contacted me. One of them had to delay his holiday by one day, which is incredibly significant for him and his wife. I very much hope the Government will make it clear how compensation in such circumstances can be gained and the best way to approach that. I also hope that this afternoon’s debate is an opportunity for the Government to outline once again the considerable and sensible steps they have taken to ensure that people can receive their passports as soon as possible.

My councillor, Ian McLennan, a tenacious Labour councillor, was hoping to depart on a cruise with his wife but unfortunately the passport reached them one day late. He is the only constituent of mine who has experienced any meaningful problems. I see no reason why my constituency should be any different from any other. I hope that when the reviews take place, we look at some—

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The Newport passport office was closed in 2011, despite fierce opposition from all the political parties in our area and from my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden). It was a tragedy from which the city has never recovered. It took the passport office out of the heart of the city. We now have half a passport office service there. The decision was taken for managerial reasons, and authorised by a civil servant. I am sure that her career will have prospered. However, the lives of 150 people in Newport were devastated by the change.

It is nonsense to say that the closures did not lead to this crisis; of course they played an important part. There would be 150 trained, skilled people working there to keep the backlog down if it had not been closed. When the Government start to restore the emaciated passport service that is left, they have an obligation to put the jobs back into the places from which they were so cruelly torn away in 2011.

I believe that this foul-up will become one of the signature foul-ups of this Government. They will be rejected by the public not because of Europe or any other great issue, but because they are guilty of creating an ineptocracy. Virtually nothing that they have done has worked. What has happened with Atos, Capita, G4S and the rest of those great enterprises that have been set up—with the mountain of complaints, hurt and anger from the public—will be the reason why the Government are rejected.

The Government’s reaction to the crisis has followed the usual pattern. First, they say that there is no crisis and ignore it, thinking that it will go away. They deny that the crisis is taking place. When it becomes a national scandal, as this one has in the past fortnight, their response is panic. There is management by panic. The Home Secretary came to the House and introduced half a dozen new measures. That is no way to run the place, when the whole crisis was predictable and, indeed, predicted. There is then a refusal to take responsibility and to accept blame. I asked the Home Secretary last week whether she had the humility and common sense to apologise. She did not.

Paul Pugh did apologise yesterday, but he then put forward the preposterous argument that, having been responsible for the foul-up, which he admits, he is the only person who is qualified to put it right. That is like saying that the greatest criminal is the best person to run the police service. It is an extraordinary argument. There would be great satisfaction among the many people who have been badly treated by this Government and Mr Pugh if he resigned. It would please those people and it would be no loss to the country.

We look forward to seeing what can be done with the passport service. It is a service with a great history. I have represented passport workers since 1972. The passport office came to Newport in 1967. I was a local councillor at that time and I know the service well. The last crisis that everyone made a big fuss about was a computer disaster. We virtually had two passport staffs—one employed by Siemens and one employed by the passport service—running in parallel.

That crisis was nowhere near as bad as this one. At no time has there been such a sense of anxiety and of being betrayed, with trips being made to places so far away. It is unprecedented. The public will not forget this and will not forgive the Government for it. When the reckoning is made, we will find that the costs have been enormous. The Government are not coming up with any figures at the moment, but they are compensating people here and there for lost holidays and all the rest of it. The huge amount of compensation will dwarf any savings that the Government made through their cruel cuts in 2011. The people of Newport will remember that and I am sure that they will do the right thing when they vote next year.

This is a Government of incompetence who have created an ineptocracy. That will be their political doom.

HM Passport Office

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

That is absolutely right. It is not the case that one can simply take somebody with no experience of passport business and make them examine passport applications. We have security checks for passport applications and we need people who are trained to be able to do that. Every effort is being made to ensure we can bring more staff into the front line as quickly as possible, commensurate with ensuring they have the necessary level of training to be able to do that securely.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Two years ago, the lives of 150 loyal and efficient workers in my constituency were devastated by a closure that the Government described as creating a smaller but more efficient passport agency. Others predicted today’s chaos. Will the Home Secretary find it in herself to have the common sense and the humility to apologise for the ineptocracy the Government have created?

[Mrs May]

Yes, there have been changes in the way the Passport Office operates. The Passport Office has been operating efficiently and effectively in dealing with people’s applications since those changes were made. We now have a period of higher demand than we have seen for 12 years. That high demand is now being addressed by a number of steps that have been taken, but we will look at how the Passport Office should operate more efficiently in the future to ensure that it offers the best possible service.

Stop-and-Search

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

It is absolutely disgraceful. Sadly, as I indicated in response to another hon. Friend, the feeling has been passed through to young people in black and minority ethnic communities that this is what happens and is, if you like, a fact of life. I want to change that and ensure that it is not a fact of life.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The charity Release published figures to show that the chance of being stopped and searched was seven in 1,000 for white people, 18 in 1,000 for Asian people and 45 in 1,000 for black people. One of the worst areas in the country for the stopping and searching of Asian people was Gwent, where they were six times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. Will those disparities be obvious under her new plans, and will she identify and deal with them?

[Mrs May]

Absolutely. We will put the figures on stop-and-searches on the www.police.uk website, alongside the crime maps, which have proved to be successful and popular. The figures that the hon. Gentleman has given for Gwent show the problem of disproportionality in the stop-and-searches that are being undertaken. I hope that he will play his role by encouraging the police in Gwent to sign up to the “best use of stop-and-search” scheme so that we can change behaviour there, as in other places.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the important steps that the Government have taken in banning the detention of children. Indeed he will also recognise the work of the family returns panel, which analyses those cases to assess whether it is appropriate for a child to be returned and in what circumstances.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The criminalisation of the drug mephedrone, once a legal high, resulted in a 300% increase in its use in my area. Will the Government look at the practical new approach that is being tried in New Zealand, whereby the responsibility for the safety of legal highs is being placed on those who profit from the sale of them?

[Norman Baker]

The answer is that an international comparator study has been undertaken, and that includes talking to countries that have a whole range of different approaches, including New Zealand, Ireland and Portugal. We are assessing what works best with the object of minimising the harm from drug use.

Public Administration Select Committee

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Sadly, I must tell him that there is not a single police officer on the streets or around the Palace who has expressed the least surprise about what we were told in evidence by PC Patrick and many other witnesses. They all knew that this was going on, and everybody has known that this has been going on in many police forces, possibly most police forces, for very many years. The fact that my hon. Friend has not been exposed to it is intriguing; I will say no more than that. Let me reassure him that I am immensely reassured that my hon. Friend the Minister is in the House today and has indeed participated in these proceedings. I have already had a meeting with the Home Secretary at which we have had a preliminary discussion about the report. My hon. Friend is tempting me to apply for a fuller debate on the report so that Ministers can give a fuller response. Perhaps that can happen after the Government have responded in full to our report.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Is not the most egregious example of the waste and futility of target setting what happened in the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime? In seeking to set three targets for reducing crime, reducing costs and improving morale, it decided to have targets of 20%, 20% and 20% in what was an obvious way of headline chasing. Is the Chairman shocked by what we heard in evidence to his Committee and to the Home Affairs Committee? Although the Met has men and women of integrity in it who are entirely free of any corruption and are entirely honourable, the surprise is that, going back to the murder of Daniel Morgan 27 years ago, there are elements in the Met that are institutionally corrupt.

[Mr Jenkin]

Our recommendation is that MOPAC should abandon targets. If it has slogans, they should be aspirations, not targets. The hon. Gentleman, who is on the Committee and for whose work I am grateful, is right that there are aspects of this that raise very serious questions about the ethics and values of the leadership of the police, particularly the Metropolitan police.