General Election Campaign: Abuse and Intimidation

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I do not have the latest figures on hate crime prosecutions to hand, but I can absolutely assure my right hon. Friend that the number of people reporting hate crime has significantly increased, as have the prosecutions and convictions. Thanks to the bravery of two of our female colleagues from these Benches who were subjected to appalling hate crime and stalking, prosecutions were secured and the perpetrators are now in prison, where they so richly deserve to be. I hope that that sends out a very strong message that this type of intimidation will simply not be tolerated.

The Prime Minister made her views very clear when she said that

“hate crime of any kind is completely unacceptable. It divides communities, destroys lives and makes us weaker. Britain is thriving precisely because we welcome people from all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities, and that is something we must strive to protect.”—[Official Report, 12 July 2017; Vol. 627, c. 168WH.]

One of the first actions of the Home Secretary was to launch the hate crime action plan, which sets out steps that we are taking to prevent these crimes, boost the reporting of offences and support victims. It focuses on five key areas: preventing hate crime by challenging beliefs and behaviours; responding to hate crime in our communities with the aim of reducing the number of incidents; increasing reporting; improving support for victims; and building up our understanding of the motivation of hate crime.

We already have a strong legislative framework in place to tackle these crimes. The action plan lists new actions to ensure that the legislation is used effectively to support victims and deal with perpetrators. We recognise the importance of ensuring that the police response to hate crime is as good as it can possibly be, which is why the Home Secretary has asked Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to carry out an inspection into how the police deal with all five strands of hate crimes, including online abuse. That inspection will take place during this financial year. We are very keen to see what HMIC finds and how the issues are addressed.

I know that, for many Members, the issue of online abuse is one of particular concern. The Government are absolutely clear that abusive and threatening behaviour online is totally unacceptable—whoever the target.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I read in today’s paper that even Laura Kuenssberg was verbally attacked during the election campaign and had to be accompanied by security officers. Surely even the press—I do not like everything that the BBC says or do—should be protected and able to have free speech.

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. Hate crime is totally unacceptable. No one —whether they are a journalist, police officer, nurse, or anyone else in our country—should be subjected to hate crime.

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[Cat Smith]

I clarify that I am referring to the press reports that I read in The Times this morning.

I raise that issue because violence against women is a huge problem in this country. Two women a week are killed by their partner or former partner, and rape continues to be a crime that is under-reported and for which it is very hard to achieve a successful prosecution. We as a House need to acknowledge that the problem we have in this country with violence against women is not helped when senior journalists, commentators or politicians use language such as that I have mentioned when referring to female Members of this House.

As well as the press, political parties and politicians have a responsibility to set an example by treating others with dignity and respect, including those with whom we strongly disagree. If we are to have a useful debate, we must be very honest in looking at the campaigns that our national parties run. I am referring to some of the social media advertising that ends up on voters’ Facebook timelines, often without their permission, highlighting and singling out particular Members of the House. I am referring specifically to the advertisements by the Conservative party that singled out my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

[Mrs Latham]

Will the hon. Lady distance herself from the “ditch the bitch” remarks made by the shadow Chancellor about one of our candidates, not at the last election but at the previous one?

[Cat Smith]

I associate myself with the remarks of my party leader, who has been very clear—indeed, he sent out such advice to Labour party candidates during the last election—that we should fight elections on the basis of policies, politics and the record of the Government, not play it personal. With that approach, we can have a debate in public that may influence the debate taking place on social media, and we may see a downturn in the levels of abuse highlighted by Members on both sides of the House.

This abuse does not take place in a vacuum. We must look at the campaign spearheaded by Lynton Crosby in the London mayoral election, which was even described by Baroness Warsi as “appalling”. That was because of the attacks on Sadiq Khan, which are widely understood to have been racist in nature.

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[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

That was an interesting contribution by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith); I will refer to it during my remarks. I recently came back from Rwanda, where there was a presidential election. There was less intimidation, abuse and violence there than we had in this country, which is pretty shocking, because many African countries—not Rwanda, I have to say—suffer from a lot of abuse.

I want raise the issue of intimidation and abuse during the election on behalf of someone who no longer has a voice in this place because she was defeated in that election. I have followed parliamentary protocol and notified the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) yesterday that I would mention him today in the Chamber. The Opposition spokesman should listen very carefully to what I have to say about him. It is pretty ironic that only last month the new Member for Derby North spoke out against such smears in an article in The Guardian:

“But I feel people have stopped listening to the smears and lies and dirty tricks…Jeremy’s overwhelming landslide victories in the leadership elections and the general election”—

I am not sure where the landslide victory comes in as regards the general election—

“mean people have stopped listening to the smears”.

Well, no, they have not.

Some weeks before the election, a Facebook page calling itself “Unauthorised Amanda Solloway” appeared, giving all sorts of misinformation about her. The previous year, her husband’s business went bankrupt. He was one of, I think, three directors. As the wife of one of the directors, our former colleague was singled out for abuse on Facebook. The wives of the other directors were never mentioned, and neither were the other directors. She had no connection to her husband’s business, and bringing up her name in association was just a way to tarnish her reputation for no reason. Nobody in this House would expect to be deemed responsible for a relative’s business, but Amanda Solloway was—just because she ruffled feathers by winning a parliamentary seat two years earlier. We are all entitled to a family life outside this place and politics in general. Bringing family into any political debate is unreasonable, and the hon. Member for Derby North would not like it if I were to refer to his private life in this Chamber or anywhere else.

Of course, the Facebook page has now been removed, but we have screenshots of it. It included video statements made by Amanda Solloway’s opponent, the new Member for Derby North, about the unfair link to her husband’s business. That would suggest that the hon. Gentleman had direct involvement in the page’s overall strategy. If he did not, how were the videos made available?

This Facebook page not only said that Amanda Solloway must have been involved in her husband’s business and so was culpable for the number of people who lost money as a result of the bankruptcy, but showed pictures of her with her husband on a social occasion a long time ago, wearing evening dress to go to a dinner, implying they were wealthy. They are not. It also showed a photo of one of her daughters’ wedding day. That year, both their daughters were married; the page suggested that this was done on the proceeds gained from the unfortunate people who lost their money when the company went bankrupt. That was totally false. This was a targeted, personal and unfair campaign against our former colleague. In fact, I would say it was bullying.

[Dr Huq]

I remember the hon. Lady’s former colleague. We did an interview together when the election was announced, and I am sorry to hear of these tragic things. Before I was elected in 2015, a fake Twitter account called “Dr Huq” was set up, which said I lied about the NHS and put out all sorts of vile messages. It was shut down only after I was elected. I wonder if the hon. Lady has had the same experience as me, in that social media platforms take these matters seriously from MPs, but the general public, former MPs or unsuccessful candidates are unable to do anything. There are double standards.

[Mrs Latham]

It is a very difficult situation. The Facebook page received many hits, because many people were searching for Amanda Solloway. Many people could have been influenced by this vile abuse on social media.

The final straw was when the current Member of Parliament asked people who had been affected by the bankruptcy to join him at a meeting to discuss how he would return their money. He said he would pay their expenses to attend the meeting, and the money was raised from donations through a YouCaring compassionate crowdfunding page. All this was done on the page by video. The new Member for Derby North asked for donations, so that he could meet at a venue in Derby those who had lost money—most of them were not from Derby—and presumably promise that he, and he alone, would stand up for them, and probably ask them to help his campaign. In fact, at the first business questions following the election, he tried to trick the Leader of the House into condemning Amanda and her husband’s company. He knows the ropes, because of course he had been an MP before Amanda Solloway won in 2015—something he has never come to terms with.

Amanda faced other problems. She was campaigning outside a very large mosque in Derby on a Friday following prayers; in the area, leaflets with the title “Operation Muslim Vote” had been delivered by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK. Amanda’s photo was on the leaflet. Next to a headline saying, “Their voting record” it stated:

“Voted against ending rough sleeping and causes of rising homelessness. Voted against accepting 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children. Visited Israel with Conservative Friends of Israel as a Tory candidate”.

Finally, in large capitals, it read:

“Voted for UK to support Saudis’ bombing of Yemen. Do you want this Tory MP to represent you…? You decide on June 8th”.

Obviously, this group is entitled to try to influence the election, but the leaflet in my view was bullying and intimidatory, and it was not even truthful. Amanda Solloway is a respected figure among Derby’s immigrant communities. Since leaving Parliament, she has been setting up a charity for those with mental health issues, and is involved in projects for the homeless. The swastika and abuse drawn on my posters, and the theft of dozens of them, are not in the same league as the campaign against Amanda. In my case, the police caught on camera a person who looked at the poster during the evening and returned at 3 am to deface it. He now has a caution, which will affect his ability to change jobs. I hope he has learned a lesson.

I fully expect, after I have exposed what happened to Amanda, to receive threats for speaking out on these issues, but they must be aired so that the public understand what we have to put up with. The behaviour of the Member for Derby North was the worst I have ever seen. I hope the sensible wing of the Labour party, not the extreme left-wingers who are clearly just like Militant used to be, will win the day and stop this kind of personalised campaigning. As the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood said, politics should be about the policies, not the people.

A political campaign should never be personal—as I have said, it should be about policies—but the Member for Derby North clearly overstepped the boundaries. Neil Kinnock, a former Member and leader of the Labour party, tried to remove this sort of extremism when he was party leader, and was successful for a time, but unfortunately we seem to have gone backwards. I appeal to the sensible Labour Members to show their colleague that his behaviour is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated by them or anyone in the future.

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[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

This has been a reasoned, somewhat sombre and, with a couple of notable exceptions, non-partisan debate in which Members from across the House have discussed the unacceptable abuse that candidates and the public experience during election campaigns. The hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) also emphasised the abuse suffered by our staff, to whom we are all always grateful. Members have shared their experiences, very distressingly in some cases, and the contribution from the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), in particular, highlighted that as well as politicians we are human beings. My hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones) and for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) also made those points.

I echo the words of many colleagues: abuse and intimidation have no place in our democracy or our party. This kind of behaviour must never be viewed as the price to be paid for political involvement. It is our duty as public office holders to protect the integrity of electoral processes and the safety of candidates standing in future elections. It is clear from listening to colleagues from across the House that this is an issue for all political parties. Although it is difficult to listen to so many horrific examples of abuse, this debate presents an opportunity for us to work together to find effective solutions, so will the Government commit to working with the Opposition, and with other political parties, to agree a joint code of conduct with a framework for reporting and assessing discrimination, racism and other forms of electoral abuse, and for disciplining those responsible?

The hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) approved of the idea of removing addresses from ballot papers for council candidates, while the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who opened the debate, suggested that there should be greater powers for returning officers and the police, as well as strengthened guidance.

We all know that candidates are often targeted because of their gender, sexuality, class and/or ethnicity. Labour Members condemn all acts of intimidation, including the death threats, rape threats, criminal damage, sexism, racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism of which we have heard today. The gendered nature of abuse directed at candidates is a reflection of wider sexism in our society. Women and girls face abuse and harassment every day. That is not unique to British society or politics. A survey carried out by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 2016 found that 82% of women parliamentarians in 39 countries had experienced some form of psychological violence, and 44% had received threats of death, rape, beating or abduction.

[Mrs Latham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Chi Onwurah]

I am afraid not. I am sorry, but we have very little time. However, I am sure the hon. Lady agrees with me that the safety of women is far too important for anyone to turn a blind eye. Will the Minister tell me what progress the Government have made on achieving the aims set out in their policy paper, “Strategy to end violence against women and girls: 2016 to 2020”, and whether, as part of that strategy, they will agree to review the abuse that women candidates face?

Abuse not only causes physical, psychological and emotional harm to its victims, but poses a significant barrier to participation in public life. One in six women MPs surveyed said that they would not have stood for Parliament in the first place if they had known what was to come. We cannot allow abuse to prevent women and ethnic minorities from entering politics. This Parliament is the most diverse in history: a record number of women, LGBT and ethnic minority MPs were elected this year. Although there is much more work to be done, that is a positive step. However, we cannot allow ourselves to move backwards, and failure to act risks reversing the progress made.

As has been observed, we as politicians are responsible for setting the tone of the national debate, not just at election times but in politics and discourse generally. When a politician is seen to legitimise hate speech or intolerance of any group in society, that politician must take ultimate responsibility for his or her words. The right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) posed the question whether we were a more divided nation following the two recent referendums. I hope he will accept that while we may disagree with each other, it is part of our role to help bring the country together, and I hope the Government will accept that political parties have a responsibility to treat others with dignity and respect, including those with whom we strongly disagree.

Those who reject the idea that women and ethnic minorities are especially targeted should consider the level of abuse received by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), which, as was stated earlier, amounts to half of all online abuse received by MPs. They should also consider a study conducted by The Guardian that found that black, female and gay journalists were the most likely to be criticised.

The abuse that I have detailed, and of which we have heard today, would not be possible on this scale were it not for the growing use of social media platforms. That point has been made by many Members today. Twitter, for instance, states that it does not

“tolerate behavior…that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another user’s voice.”

However, this is exactly what is happening on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) rightly raised the role of the press in setting an example. My hon. Friends the Members for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) and for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) emphasised the importance of social media, and that point was also made by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart). Social media platforms have a responsibility to respect our human rights and ability to express ourselves freely and without fear, particularly as the rise of bots and networks allows others on social media to industrialise the abuse that politicians are experiencing. Will the Minister reassure us that he is working with social media platforms to combat these issues, especially the industrialisation of the abuse of target figures?

As the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) emphasised, the toxic political culture surrounding President Trump has done little for British politics, with far-right US websites helping to drive abuse against Members of Parliament. Labour Members immediately condemned the President’s reckless and irresponsible rhetoric, while the Prime Minister was somewhat slower to do so. Does the Minister agree that we have a responsibility to oppose sexism, racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism in the strongest terms, both at home and abroad?

Many Members who report abuse to their local police find that investigations are cut short due to a lack of police resources. If we really want the police to tackle abuse, they need to be properly resourced. Will the Minister tell us how he will ensure that they have the resources they need? Jo Cox paid the ultimate price as an MP, and it is always an honour to stand in front of her memorial in the Chamber. As the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) said, we are not facing that kind of sacrifice, but we must see action on this issue, because the two things are related. The abuse and intimidation of candidates and the public have no place in our elections.

I want to end with some of my own experience, albeit slightly reluctantly because when I have raised the abuse of politicians in the past, I have been told, without irony, that I need to “grow a pair”. Last week, I wrote an article about the reprehensible crimes uncovered by Operation Sanctuary in my constituency. As a consequence, I have received thousands of abusive tweets threatening me and accusing me of unspeakable crimes. As well as being unpleasant in themselves, those tweets prevented me from seeing what my constituents had to say about the issue, and that is what concerns me most. The abuse that politicians and candidates often attract not only prevents the interaction between constituents and MPs, but puts constituents off becoming MPs. Everyone here has a duty to promote the House as being representative and as somewhere all can come to to represent their views, their cities and their constituencies. However, it is hard to see this place becoming more representative while Members of Parliament are subjected to such abuse, which is putting many people off aspiring to what is nevertheless the best job in the world.

Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that many people across the country are deeply disappointed by this action, because the scheme was working. It was saving lives and people’s futures. Charities told the Home Affairs Committee that they estimated that there had been a drop in the number of children and teenagers trying to get here illegally during the period in the autumn when a lot of this support was put in. We were therefore reducing the number of dangerous illegal journeys by providing the safe legal routes and undertaking the managed work with other countries. That is crucial in terms of clearing the camp in Calais to prevent the trafficking, the modern slavery and the dangerous illegal journeys.

Ministers have given four reasons for closing the Dubs scheme. The first is that it encourages traffickers. The second is that the French want us to close it. The third is that local authorities have no more capacity. The fourth is that the Government have delivered on the Dubs amendment. Let me take each in turn.

First, the Home Affairs Committee heard evidence yesterday from UNICEF, Citizens UK, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and one of the Children’s Commissioners. Those agencies are all doing important work with child refugees in Greece and Italy and along the French coast. All were categoric that the ending of the Dubs scheme will increase, not reduce, the trafficking risk, and that by taking away the safe and legal routes it will increase the number of children and young people who end up in the arms of traffickers and smugglers’ gangs, not reduce it.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and I visited Dunkirk and Calais on Monday. In Dunkirk, we met 13 and 14-year-olds who had been in the Calais camps. They had gone to the French centre and into safe accommodation, but for all kinds of complicated reasons their claims had been turned down and they had lost hope and got lost in the system. They are now back in Dunkirk in a really dangerous situation. I am really at a loss to know how the camp is allowed to continue as it is, because it is clearly being run by a smuggling gang—there is no doubt about what is happening in that Dunkirk camp. Two teenage boys we met were sleeping in a hut with 80 adult men. It was deeply unsafe, and when we asked them they said that they felt unsafe. They had gone back there because they had lost hope in any chance of the legal system getting them to safety.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

My feeling is that that is terrible—it is really bad—but why are the French not doing anything about it? Why should it be us? Why are the French not dealing with that situation? They should be, because it is in France, which is not an unsafe country. Lots of people live there quite safely, so why are we worried about us doing something about it when in that situation it should be the French?

[Yvette Cooper]

Of course the French should be dealing with the trafficking that is taking place in Dunkirk, and there should be enforcement. Frankly, though, other countries need to do something as well, because we can be in no doubt that the gang that is operating there, taking families across from Dunkirk to Britain, will have a lot of operations in Britain as well. There ought to be co-ordinated police action against that trafficking gang, because that is absolutely important.

The joint action between Britain and France to get the children into French centres was working in the autumn. Some of the children were then going into the asylum system and safety in France, and rightly so; some of the others—perhaps the most vulnerable or those with family in Britain—were getting sanctuary in Britain. The two teenagers we spoke to both said that they have family in Britain. They had been turned down, but given no reason—there was no piece of paper and nothing in the system—for why they had been turned down. As a result, they had turned up in Dunkirk and in Calais again. We will see more and more children arriving in Calais and Dunkirk and going back, at risk, pushed by the fact that the safe legal route has been taken away.

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[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

We have heard some very passionate speeches and, I am sure, heartfelt views, but we ought to get back to reality and exactly what is happening. I think that some Members just did not listen to what the Minister said or to the statistics he gave about the numbers of people being brought into this country.

I have not been to Dunkirk or Calais, or to Greece or Italy, to see the refugees there, but I have been to Jordan and Turkey, where I have seen the camps in which children and adults are living. Nobody in their right mind wants to be in a refugee camp. It is not somewhere any of us want to go, but it could be us at some point. We might need to do that—I hope not—but any country in the world could find itself in that situation.

Given the desperate situation that the Syrian people are in, they are in a pretty safe place in those refugee camps. They are being fed, they are being given a health service, and their children are being given an education. Many people do not realise this, but the Jordanian Government have said that any child on Jordanian soil, of whatever nationality—they have Palestinian refugees as well as others—will receive the same education that their own children are receiving. This is not the case for the trafficked children who have been taken across the continent to come to Britain. As they have been trafficked, they are out of education and do not have a health service. They should have been settled in the refugee camps because people are getting a pretty good deal there. Interestingly, the Azraq camp is not full—there is plenty of space there—so it is not as though there is nowhere for people to go.

[Heidi Allen]

I mean this with no disrespect to my hon. Friend—I completely understand her point—but the problem is that Europe reacted too late, so these families and children had already made the journey to Greece and Italy and are trapped there. If we do not contribute, who will take responsibility for them?

[Pauline Latham]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, but does she not recognise that France, Italy and Greece are safe countries? They are not Nazi Germany, where Lord Dubs came from. He escaped from being murdered. These children and families are not under threat of murder—they are in safe countries whose Governments should be respecting and dealing with them under all sorts of international rules.

Going back to the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, every building at the Azraq camp has been provided by IKEA. Nobody gives it credit for supporting so many of these refugees. In the desert, all the solar panels that are heating and lighting the buildings have been given to the region by IKEA to help these young people. We are providing a lot of the education and health services.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

rose—

[Pauline Latham]

I will not give way again because I do not have long to speak.

We have provided the bore hole to provide safe water for the people there. They are safe. We should be saying to them, “Stay there.” Most of them do not want to come here. Why would they want to when they can speak their own language and do not need to learn English?

Why are all these people being pulled to Calais, Dunkirk and other places? They came recently. They were cleared in France, as we have heard. There was an agreement last year whereby those refugees were sorted out legitimately. More have come since then—many more—so one cannot say that there is no pull factor.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pauline Latham]

I am sorry, but I will not give way again because I do not have long.

I believe that we should be supporting those camps. Britain has done its bit—£2.3 billion is not insignificant. We should be proud of the money we have put in there and proud of the fact that we have protected those people. There is a rule of law in those camps—it is not perfect, but it is not perfect here either. We need to provide as much as we can to keep the people in the region, because most Syrians want to go home once it is safe to do so. If they come here, they will not be able to go home as easily. I understand the sentiments of what people say, but I think that we should stop being so sentimental and look at what is the best thing to do for these families and children, which is to keep them in the region—and that is what this Government are doing.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

I was shocked to hear the comments made by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) about sentimentality, so I will start by asking the House a very simple question: what must it be like to be a child refugee? To deal with sentimentality, let us try to imagine that. Can any of us actually imagine the mental and physical trauma experienced by someone escaping their home country under fear of persecution?

Their departure from their home is involuntary and abrupt. Resettlement involves danger such as crossing deserts, mountains and seas. It can involve being confronted with additional conflict along the journey and going without basic resources such as food, water and shelter. Escaping by sea brings additional hardships, such as extreme weather, the loss of other passengers, witnessing loved ones drown or freeze to death, and fear. When children reach their final destination, the risks continue and in many cases worsen. Alone and afraid, vulnerable children are at the greatest risk of trafficking, neglect, sexual exploitation and physical abuse.

I have heard Members say today that some refugee camps have lots of space and that they are adequate. However, in the informal refugee camps that we know about in Greece and Italy, 90% of people do not have an adequate place to sleep, such as a tent, and there is little in the way of washing facilities. Many children in Greece find themselves in detention centres, where they are made to live and sleep in crowded, dirty, rat-infested cells, often without mattresses, and deprived of basic sanitation, hygiene and privacy. It has been reported that some boys are even turning to prostitution to keep themselves alive. If I am sentimental for bringing that up, I am very proud to be so, because those are the basic facts of what is going on in some of the worst refugee centres.

[Pauline Latham]

If we are talking about Greece and it being rat infested with no mattresses, whose fault is that? That is Greece’s fault. It should be helping those children.

[Chris Law]

The simple fact of the matter is that the world is a small place and we all belong in it as one human race. We have to recognise that we need to support partners abroad, as well as look at opportunities to provide support here at home.

Calais Children and Immigration Act

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I certainly received reports of some people leaving the camps as the clearance started. I also received reports of people coming back into the camps as they saw how that clearance was taking place. Indeed, some children who had been elsewhere in France arrived at the camps, hoping that they would be part of the scheme and could be relocated and considered under the Dubs and Dublin regulations. Unfortunately, those late arrivals were not considered in the same way. The advice that we always give to people is to claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach, and if not so, then to claim asylum in France, where they can be adequately processed.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

May I commend the Minister for the evidence he gave to the International Development Committee this week? Opposition parties might benefit from reading it, because he was very open and honest about what is happening. Will he confirm that any action taken by the Home Office in France must be approved by the French? Is it right that, until relatively recently, the French did not want Britain to take any children under the Dubs amendment for fear of creating a pull factor?

Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend is right. I know that he has raised that issue in the Chamber on numerous occasions, and rightly, because there are few issues that enrage our constituents more than the public money spent on translating things for people who, frankly, should learn to speak English if they want to stay in this country.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is talking about the international development budget and prisons abroad. In the very uncertain world in which we now live, does he not agree that it is good that our Government are spending money on strengthening the legal systems in these countries so that they can deal with their own prisoners?

[Mr Hollobone]

Yes, I support that. A stronger legal system in these countries would help to facilitate the return of their nationals imprisoned in this country.

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[Mr Hollobone]

This might be an issue that the International Development Committee, on which he sits, might want to explore, because when one compares the list of the top 10 countries with the most foreign national offenders in our jails with the list of the 28 countries to which this country gives the most international development aid, three countries stand out—Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia. All three countries are on the list of the 28 countries to which the Department for International Development gives international aid and in the top 10 list of countries with the most foreign national offenders in prison in this country.

[Pauline Latham]

Does my hon. Friend accept that many nationals from those countries send a huge amount of their own money back to their country to help their families who are still there? As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) said, those people are good, contributing members of this society because they have chosen to come here and they add to what we have in this country. Obviously the criminals are the worst offenders we could possibly have and we need to get rid of them, but there are so many people here who work hard to help their families back home.

[Mr Hollobone]

And those people will be very embarrassed indeed that their fellow foreign nationals are clogging up our prisons in this way. They may be keener than us to see a sensible resolution to the problem.

The point that I want to make in drawing my brief remarks to a close is that, if we are giving so much money in international aid to Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia, but those three countries are in the top 10 list of shame in respect of having foreign nationals in our prisons, surely we should do in those countries what we are doing in Jamaica—spending the international aid money that we are already giving them on building prisons in those countries, so that the prisoners in our country can be sent back to them.

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend’s bid to be on the Bill Committee is accepted. That is exactly the sort of constructive suggestion we need to strengthen the legislation.

[Pauline Latham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if we did do that, the standard of the prisons we would provide would be far superior to the standard of the prisons that many developing countries provide for their citizens?

[Mr Hollobone]

I am not sure that my constituents are that fussed about the standard of prisons that are built in other countries—they just want the foreign nationals to be sent back to them—but I take the point that my hon. Friend makes.

I want to highlight one other issue that is of concern. I asked the Secretary of State for Justice how many foreign national offenders were serving their sentence in prison, and I have read out to the House the list of shame that I received. However, I also asked how many foreign national offenders were serving their sentence outside prison, and the answer that I got from the Ministry of Justice was:

“The number of convicted foreign national offenders serving their sentence outside prison is not published due to data quality.”

In other words, “We don’t know.” I am very worried indeed about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

As I have already suggested, an awful lot of things on the statute book are not being implemented by judges. Some offences do not carry a prison sentence, so that would not apply no matter how many strikes someone has. We now have a mandatory prison sentence for a second offence of possession of a knife, but we saw just this week that only half of the people to whom that should apply have been sent to prison. The House’s intention is clearly not being followed by the courts, which is why we have to make the law as clear cut as possible to avoid such problems in future.

[Pauline Latham]

Rather than bring in yet more legislation, should we not put pressure on judges to follow the current legislation? They are clearly failing in their duty to send to prison the people who should be sent to prison. It is also clear that we are regularly not deporting the people who should be deported.

[Philip Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments, but, given where we are, we are going have to do something to give judges as little discretion as possible, because the more discretion we give them, the more they defy the will of Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

It is a bit of both, and partly because the European Union now includes the EU charter of fundamental rights, which essentially replicates the European convention on human rights—for these purposes those things are one and the same. If we are powerless to stop convicted rapists entering our country, we must ask what has become of our national sovereignty. I have no doubt that millions throughout the country will believe that the case that I have mentioned alone demonstrates that we need to change that state of affairs and why the Bill is so necessary.

Clause 1(1) requires the Secretary of State to make regulations, which I believe should deal with the process of removal. We are fortunate that the National Audit Office has investigated the costs and processes of returning foreign national offenders, and that it published a detailed report, “Managing and removing foreign national offenders”, in October 2014. Before anyone starts to complain that this situation is all the fault of the current Government, it is worth noting briefly that, according to the report, back in 2006, the Home Office found that more than 1,000 foreign national offenders had been released from prison without even being considered for deportation.

Although the NAO report acknowledged that the coalition Government put more resources into managing and removing foreign national offenders, it also made it clear that progress on reducing the number of foreign national offenders in our jails was slow. It confirmed—this deals with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering has just raised—that the difficulties that hindered removals were caused by the application of the European convention on human rights, as well as the application of European law on the free movement of persons. There we have it: the National Audit Office has confirmed his concerns.

[Pauline Latham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange that Nigerian prisoners call on the European Court of Human Rights when they are not European? They live in this country but retain their Nigerian nationality.

[Mr Nuttall]

If that is the case, it does seem strange—I am sure it will seem very strange to our constituents.

The NAO report acknowledged that the Government have put more resources into managing and removing foreign national offenders and made it clear that progress had been made, but it highlighted that the police had carried out an overseas criminal record check on only 30% of foreign nationals arrested. It made it clear that obtaining relevant documents such as passports at an early stage would greatly speed up the process of removal, and that fostering closer links between immigration officers and front-line police officers would speed up the process.

The Public Accounts Committee provided a commentary in its report, “Managing and removing foreign national offenders”, which was published in January 2015 following the NAO report. The Committee’s report states that

“police forces have been slow to recognise the importance, when arresting foreign nationals, of checking their immigration status and whether they have a criminal record overseas and they rarely use search powers to find evidence of identity and nationality.”

Whatever the reasons for that—it could be a lack of training or a lack of awareness—it is significant, because establishing nationality at an early stage would allow for further background checks to be carried out.

The report also states:

“Only 30% of foreign nationals arrested were checked against one key overseas database for a criminal record in 2013–14, and the great majority of police forces do not have automated links between fingerprint machines in their police stations and the Home Office’s immigration databases.”

The Committee suggested that a massive £70 million could be saved by fostering and developing such links.

The NAO noted in its report that in 2013-14, more than one third of foreign national offenders who were removed left as part of the early removal scheme. That is the scheme that returns foreign national offenders to their country of origin before they would be let out of prison if they were back here in the UK. The NAO also noted a key improvement in reducing the number of failed removals from 2,200 down to 1,400, but 1,400 still fail. That number is still far too high. I hope we will hear some detail from the Minister on why so many removals fail and what is being done to improve the situation.

Very often, we hear that problems with the delivery of Government services are due to a lack of resources, but the Public Accounts Committee noted that the number of staff working in foreign offender management had actually increased from fewer than 100 in 2006 to more than 900 in 2014—a huge percentage increase. The taxpayer can rightly expect to see an enormous improvement for that increase.

It is helpful to consider the cost to the taxpayer of dealing with foreign national offenders, because it demonstrates what an enormous drain on taxpayer resources this problem is. The NAO estimated that the average cost of managing a single foreign national offender was about £70,000 a year. The total bill for 2013-14 was an estimated £850 million, which confirms a figure that was mentioned earlier. I should add that that does not represent the total cost of a foreign national offender to British society. The figure is an estimate from the NAO, because there is an absence of definitive data. There is of course the possibility that the actual cost is much higher when one considers all the costs, from the investigation of the crime through to managing an offender in the community. Perhaps the most notable finding by the NAO, which the PAC also raised, was that managing foreign national offenders costs an estimated £100 million a year more than managing British prisoners. The Committee also noted that the Home Office did not know the reoffending rates of foreign national offenders in the community. The public will want to have confidence that such matters are now being addressed and recorded. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on that point.

Both the NAO and the PAC highlighted the delays in the removal process. The NAO carried out a review of 52 cases in which a foreign national offender had been successfully removed and discovered that 20 cases had had avoidable processing delays. They included seven instances where the case had not been worked on for an average of 76 days, and a further six cases where administrative errors had delayed the process. In order to gather information on foreign national offenders, the Home Office sends out to each one a 50-question paper form. On average, it takes 32 days just to send out the questionnaire, which does not exactly give the impression of speed or urgency. It is perhaps not surprising that foreign national offenders are not so keen on administrative matters such as paperwork. It is not a surprise that almost half of the forms are never, ever returned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am extremely disappointed: I have sat here since 9.30, unlike the Members of the SNP and the Green party who have only come in recently and not all of whom have stayed. They are trying to stop democracy in this Chamber. They do not want us to speak. Most of us have been here a long time and probably intend to stay till 2.30. It is a bit rich that they should try and stop democracy on private Members’ Bills when no private Member’s Bill is more important than any other.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on securing a Second Reading of his Bill, particularly after sleeping in the corridors of this place to ensure that the subject would be aired. SNP and Green Members would not have done that. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for taking the Bill forward. I believe it was national homelessness week recently. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough is not in that situation, but was merely sleeping in the corridor to ensure that his Bill was listed and heard in this place, which I bet none of those SNP and Green Members would have done.

As other Members will have noted, the House debated an almost identical Bill this time last year, when a few of the Members who support this Bill were candidates trying to secure election. The Conservative manifesto platform on which they ran explicitly pledged to tackle criminality and the abuse of free movement. That included negotiating with the EU to introduce stronger powers to enable us to deport criminals and stop them coming back, and tougher and longer re-entry bans for all those who abuse free movement.

I have little doubt that the sentiment of this concise Bill—preventing foreign nationals who commit a crime in the UK from remaining or returning—is supported by the vast majority in this House and of the public. Britain is one of the most generous and hospitable nations in the world, and every one of us should be proud to be lucky enough to call this country home. Understandably, it is also one of the most sought-after countries to live in. Rightly, we have to be careful about how many people we allow into the UK, and we must have strong protections in place to ensure that those who pose a threat to our way of life and our established customs and traditions do not have the chance to come here. I believe that we do have provisions firmly in place and that this Government, and the Conservative-led Government in the previous Parliament, deserve credit for the work they did to tighten restrictions and increase resources to let the border police and Home Office do their job.

Because we are such a generous nation, there are few things more frustrating to the public than when those who come here and abuse our hospitality do not adhere to our laws and waste taxpayers’ money going through our legal system. There have been high-profile cases of the processes for removing individuals from the United Kingdom taking too long and costing too much money. Members have today given many examples of that. Again, that is understandably frustrating for the public when the obvious solution is to remove them from the country and not let them back in.

It is especially frustrating when human rights are invoked as part of the reason they cannot be removed. This week saw International Women’s Day and I think of the many women and girls around the world who suffer real human rights abuses without legal recourse, not the tenuous human rights claims that have been used to stop the eviction of criminals from the United Kingdom. I was in Nigeria last week and met the families of the girls who have been abducted by Boko Haram. We are coming up to two years since their abduction, and the world should be shocked that many of them are still missing. Those girls have suffered abuses of their human rights, whereas some of the human rights claims evoked in this country are total rubbish.

There is particular frustration about the over-generous use of article 8 of the European convention on human rights, as my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) explained, which prevents deportation of EEA and non-EEA nationals if it would breach a person’s right to private and family life. How a criminal’s right to family life has ever been allowed to supersede the safety of the British public I shall never understand. It is also hard to believe that Greece is an unsafe country to return its nationals to, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering mentioned.

I therefore have a lot of sympathy with the Bill and the Members who have brought it forward. I also admire its simplicity and brevity; the main part, clause 1(1), is just 43 words long. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to support the Bill as it stands, because I believe that we already have functioning procedures in place to keep criminals out. The language of the Bill, brief though it is, is too ambiguous. We would have to withdraw from a number of conventions and treaties that benefit us in order to implement it. It also disregards any idea of individuals being able to rehabilitate themselves, which is something this Government are making positive efforts with in this Parliament.

As I am sure the Minister will outline, the UK already has provisions for deporting foreign criminals enshrined in law. They have not always been as strong as they are now, so the previous Government deserve credit for the steps they took to address the problems of deporting foreign criminals who commit a crime in the UK. Perhaps the Government should, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering mentioned, look at simplifying the four definitions of how people can be returned to their country: if they had just one, it might be easier for judges to implement.

In the Immigration Act 2014, the Government set out that the law should be on the side of the public, and the starting point is the expectation that foreign criminals will be deported. The Act also rightly changed the law so that, when there is no risk of serious, irreversible harm, foreign criminals can be deported first and have their appeal heard later. It also changed the rules so that those who do have a right to appeal will be able to appeal only once, thus avoiding wasting time and UK taxpayers’ money on drawn-out legal appeals, which have happened far too often in the past. That is on top of the long-standing rules we have in place on deporting foreign nationals, including on the automatic deportation of non-EEA nationals who are convicted in the UK and who receive a single custodial sentence of 12 months or more for one conviction. It is shocking to hear that judges sometimes say they will give only an 11-month sentence so that people do not have to be deported.

A non-EEA person who has been deported is already prohibited from entering the UK while the deportation order against them remains in force. Such orders are indefinite, unless a decision is made to remove them. That leaves open the possibility that a person who commits a crime when they are young can appeal to return later in their life when their character is proven to have changed. The Bill affords no such second chances and proposes no scale for different offences.

There is a range of petty crimes that could technically merit a prison sentence but for which courts may, based on the individual, judge that not to be necessary. The Bill is rigid in its definition of what crime has to be committed for someone to be excluded from the UK, referring to

“any offence for which a term of imprisonment may be imposed by”

a UK court of law. Such strict terms—free from provision for any individual consideration, which our legal system currently has—are a flaw in the Bill.

We already have in place a tough system to refuse visas or entrance to individuals applying to come to the UK who have a criminal history in the UK or elsewhere. I know it is not Government policy to publicise exclusion decisions, but I believe the Home Secretary when she says those measures have successfully kept hundreds of criminals out of the UK. That, however, does not get to the heart of the issue the Bill is aimed at—a swift repeal of European law, which prevents EEA nationals from being excluded from the UK if they are sentenced. Under the European directive on freedom of movement, more demanding grounds than previous criminal conviction are required to deport EEA national offenders who have resided in a host member state for over five or 10 years. I was pleased that the Prime Minister made easing restrictions on deporting EU national offenders part of his renegotiation deal and, in particular, that the Commission agreed to examine the five and 10-year residence thresholds for expulsion.

The Bill does not acknowledge that the freedom of movement directive contains restrictions. I agree that there has been abuse of free movement in the EU, but EU offenders who commit a crime in the UK can already be removed and kept out, with a re-entry ban of one year. I hope the Prime Minister does not give up on his efforts to have that re-entry ban extended. The Secretary of State already has the power to exclude those deemed a serious threat to public policy or public security.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pauline Latham]

I thought SNP Members wanted us to conclude, but I will give way.

[Dr Cameron]

First, I must declare an interest, having previously completed risk assessments in this regard. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is important that foreign national offenders receive comprehensive risk assessments so that appropriate judgments can be made?

[Pauline Latham]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but it might be difficult to do comprehensive risk assessments, and that would delay the process. If somebody has been convicted, they need to go back to their own country immediately.

As part of the Prime Minister’s EU renegotiation deal, the EU Commission will clarify the meanings of the “serious” and “imperative” grounds on which we can exclude people from the UK, removing ambiguity and making it easier for our immigration services to carry out their duties.

For those who are removed and deemed to be a threat to the UK, we still have border checks in place to make sure that they cannot be allowed in. This Government and the Conservative-led previous Government deserve credit for strengthening the data our border police have through the warnings index, specifically those on whether anyone coming through our border is subject to an outstanding deportation order. The Bill would also do away with the Schengen information system, which allows European states to share information on criminals, thereby preventing them from getting into the UK in the first place.

Ultimately, although I agree with the sentiment behind the Bill—all of the speakers have spoken powerfully, mainly in favour of the Bill, and I understand where they are coming from—we already have in place a lot of what it is trying to achieve, namely the exclusion of those non-UK individuals under discussion from enjoying the opportunities and hospitality that this country offers. Therefore, I do not believe the Bill is necessary.

Violence against Women and Girls

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.

In the week of international women’s day, I express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) for securing this important debate on violence against women.

Gender-based violence is a serious bar to development. As a member of the Select Committee on International Development, I have seen how it can affect women overseas. In 2013, a UK study estimated the annual global cost of domestic violence at $42 billion, as a result of lost productivity at work and other expenses such as medical bills, police support and counselling. It is therefore abundantly clear that eradicating gender-based violence goes hand in hand with ensuring economic stability in developing countries—[Interruption.] At this point I break, the Minister having returned to her place, to wish her a happy birthday.

To continue, early and forced marriage also limit girls’ access to education, which has an effect on the quality of the economic contribution that they will ever be able to make. I am pleased that violence against women and girls has been a focus of the Department for International Development’s policy programme and, in a recent update to the International Development Committee, the Department reported a substantial 40% increase in the number of programmes that work to change harmful social norms. In Ethiopia, for example, we have seen that it is not enough to pressure Governments to impose laws on violence against women and girls; there needs to be a shift in culture, which is best supported by educating men and boys as well as women and girls.

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I echo my hon. Friend’s thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod).

Does my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) share my concern that so much of the increase in violence against women is being channelled through social media and websites? Will she join me in congratulating the Government on recognising that and on some of their work such as making revenge pornography illegal, and in urging them to go further to ensure that crimes against women are not committed so easily online?

[Pauline Latham]

The bullying of or violence against woman and girls is not always physical; a lot of the stuff on social media now is verbal and mental bullying, which girls find difficult to resist, in particular during their teenage years when they might sometimes be having difficulty in coming to terms with their life, lifestyle and where they are going. Social media need to be curbed and we need to look hard at how they are used. I am pleased to see that the Government are involved in dealing with the problem.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I, too, echo the thanks to the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) for securing the debate.

Will the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) join me in welcoming the Secretary of State for Education’s announcement that lessons on consent, whether in sex and relationships education or personal, social, health and economic education, are hugely important? Does the hon. Lady share my disappointment that the Secretary of State fell short of saying that such lessons ought to be mandatory in all our schools?

[Pauline Latham]

I welcome the fact that the subject of consent can be included in such lessons. That is down to the school, and I am sure that most schools will include it, as well as education about female genital mutilation and all the other things that women and girls have to put up with. The schools—head teachers and governors—should take the lead, but I welcome the fact that the opportunity to include consent is available to them.

Since I came to Parliament in 2010, I have been particularly interested in FGM and involved in working against it. I am now chair of the all-party group on female genital mutilation. I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), for all her work before she became public health Minister—a portfolio that includes responsibility for FGM—when she campaigned against FGM alongside some powerful women in this country. Sadly, however, last year we lost a great and tenacious campaigner, Efua Dorkenoo, who died unexpectedly. The FGM movement has a lot to thank Efua and her tireless campaigning for. It is sad that she will not see the fruits of her hard work over many years.

The problem with FGM is that it is on the rise in this country. Only a decade ago the number of girls and women who had undergone FGM in England and Wales stood at approximately 66,000. Shockingly, the figure is now estimated to have more than doubled. I have seen the devastating effect that the practice can have on young women and girls, and I am fully behind any attempt to eradicate it within or outside the UK.

Recently, I worked alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and the Justice for Victims of FGM UK charity to make amendments to what is now the Serious Crime Act 2015 to safeguard girls from the risk of FGM.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying. She said that the incidence of FGM has more than doubled in the UK over the past decade. Is she therefore, like me, disappointed that we have not seen the same increase in prosecutions for the promotion and practice of FGM?

[Pauline Latham]

I certainly am. I hope that under the new Act we will see some serious prosecutions, because there have been problems with earlier ones. I want to see prosecutions that might show the way, so that people who want to carry out FGM of young girls will be persuaded that it is not a good idea because they will be prosecuted. Until that happens, we will continue to see not so much an increase, but probably a steady number of girls who are at risk or have had FGM done to them.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is good that people are now talking about FGM? There is much more understanding of it and more support for victims, such as from the Kaiza project in my constituency. I met with those working on the project only a couple of weeks ago and it is drawing attention to the problem and encouraging young women to come forward and confront what has happened to them.

[Pauline Latham]

I certainly agree. Any project such as the one in Rugby is welcome, because we want more organisations to educate and to help people to come forward and talk about FGM, which has been a taboo subject—something done behind closed doors—with families closing up and not talking about it. Girls have suffered as a result. I welcome anything that any organisation, such as the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency, can do.

I also welcome the fact that we have some men in the debate. The subject is not women only and we should recognise that we need men to engage with it. I am pleased that in this place we seem to have a lot of men who are concerned about violence against women in this country and abroad.

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

The hon. Lady is being generous in taking interventions. I thank her for making a powerful speech and for her work on the APG.

The Opposition supported the amendment that the hon. Lady tabled to the Serious Crime Bill to ensure that girls at risk were supported in relation to FGM protection orders. Does she recognise, however, the importance of making FGM an offence? That has been supported by a large number of campaigning groups, and the Labour party tabled an amendment on the issue in Committee. Taking action would mean that, in communities where there were pressures on parents to cut their daughters, action could be taken against those involved.

[Pauline Latham]

Yes, but FGM has been illegal in this country for many years; it is just that we have had no prosecutions. Those are the one thing that will reduce the incidence of FGM. We need to look much more at how France has had successful prosecutions, so that we can have some here. That will show the country, and the world, that we are serious about combating FGM.

One of the amendments I mentioned was designed to give judges explicit guidance to allow them to grant FGM protection orders for girls at risk of FGM. Such orders would stop an at-risk girl leaving the country and prevent the commissioning of an FGM offence. Those offences do not always happen in this country; they can happen when girls go abroad, to places such as Ethiopia, and they often happen when girls go away during the summer holidays. We need to stop that, and education is the only way we can do it.

The amendment would also have provided a concrete framework for social workers, law enforcement agencies and other bodies to operate in. We know from previous experience that non-statutory guidance simply would not provide enough support for workers concerned about a girl at risk of FGM. That lack of direction, coupled with a fear of offending culture and tradition, as well as confusion as to what protective measures are appropriate, has more often than not resulted in a failure to put in place the appropriate safeguarding mechanisms. It is not acceptable to let more girls slip through the net, and I implore the next Government to provide the support that the judiciary and health care professionals need. Cutting is not cultural, and it is not something we accept in this country—it is child abuse. We need to recognise that these girls are at risk of child abuse.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

We cannot say often enough that cutting is not culturally acceptable. We must never use cultural sensitivity as an excuse for not acting when we think people are at risk or have been abused.

[Pauline Latham]

I completely agree. This is quite simply child abuse, and there is no more to be said about it. Everybody has a responsibility to ensure that we do not accept cutting in any form, because it is wrong and it is child abuse.

Forced marriage is another issue affecting women and girls in this country, and the steps the Government took in passing the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to identify it as an act of violence and as a crime are admirable. The forced marriage unit, established in 2005, has been instrumental in offering young men and women the help they need if they are at risk of forced marriage. Happily, there have been reports of an increase in the number of people coming forward to the unit, and I hope that trend continues. In the coming years, I believe the UK will see a significant drop in the number of women affected by forced marriage, with the new law serving as a strong deterrent, and education helping girls and men to understand that forced marriage is wrong.

I am particularly proud of the incredible work the charity Karma Nirvana does to combat honour-based violence, including forced marriages, although I do not agree that this violence is honour based—it is violence. The charity runs the UK’s only helpline offering support and advice to those affected by those issues. Its founder, Jasvinder Sanghera, is originally from Derby, and she would have undergone a forced marriage herself had she not run away.

Earlier this year, the charity ran a petition on introducing a day of remembrance for those who have lost their lives in so-called honour-based killings—they are actually murder—as a result of refusing to enter into an arranged marriage. The petition proved incredibly popular, and it contained the signatures of more than 110,000 supporters when it was presented in November. I am pleased to say that the day of remembrance received cross-party support and was given the go-ahead for 14 July, which coincides with the birthday of Shafilea Ahmed, a young girl who was murdered by her parents in 2003 because she refused to have an arranged marriage. Sadly, Jasvinder’s own sister committed suicide by pouring petrol over herself and setting herself alight because she was the unhappy victim of a forced marriage.

I hope that, on 14 July, we will remember not just those who have been murdered as a result of forced marriage, but those who have committed suicide.

In the global arena, positive steps have been taken to prevent FGM, and Ethiopia, for example, outlawed it in 2004. However, the number of women affected by FGM has remained relatively high. The procedures take place in unsterilised and poorly lit conditions, which increases the risk of post-operative infection and further mutilation, and girls can lose their lives as a result.

I am encouraged, however, by the Department for International Development’s response to the situation, because supporting those in the community, such as church leaders, village elders, fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, to speak out against FGM helps to challenge ideas about the practice. I have seen the Department’s programme, and it is having positive results, which I am really pleased about.

On violence against women in Nepal, the police have a very robust system. A feisty female police officer is helping women and girls and challenging attitudes. She helps women to come forward to explain what has been going on. That, again, is an important step forward.

I pay tribute to the Government for all the hard work they have done to improve the lives of women here and overseas, but there is much more to be done, and it is important in the final days of this Parliament that we do all we can to ensure that the good work continues. I hope that the Government, in their aid programmes, continue to recognise women as making a significant economic contribution to their communities and to educate men and boys to change traditional views on women and women’s place in society.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her excellent, wide-ranging speech, which addresses many issues that are so important to women and men across the world.

As the hon. Lady says, FGM should not be seen as a cultural practice, but does she agree that it is also important to say that FGM, the exploitation of women and violence against women are not associated with one religion or culture? Those who try to incite division in our community by implying that should be told very clearly that this is, unfortunately, a very broad-based challenge.

[Pauline Latham]

I agree with the hon. Lady—it is broad based. As she says, it has nothing to do with religion and culture; it goes across a number of societies, and it is completely wrong—it is mutilation and violence, and it has no place in modern society.

I am hopeful that the statutory framework put in place to protect girls in this country will yield positive results in eradicating the scourge of FGM and forced marriage.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I want to make three main points. One is that violence against women and girls is serious. I want, secondly, to discuss better ways of preventing it and, thirdly, to raise issues about ensuring that policies and law actually work in practice.

The issue really is serious. I was looking at the statistics for Thames Valley, the police area that covers Slough, which I represent: one third of the assaults with injury, in the latest year for which figures are available, are as a result of domestic abuse—and actually not just assaults with injury are involved. If we look at the homicide figures for the Thames Valley area, we see that in the past five years there have been 86 adult homicides, of which 27 were domestic abuse-related homicides. One in three murders in the Thames Valley police area is domestic abuse-related.

This is a real problem, which is life-threatening for women and girls. We have to start from realising that and recognising that it is not just a question of bringing the perpetrators to justice. This debate has illustrated that very powerfully. It is also a question of preventing these kinds of incident in the future. That is mostly what I want to focus on—the education not just of girls but of wider society in how to protect girls and women from violence.

I held a meeting with women in my constituency about child sexual exploitation. They were concerned about the issue. They felt that policies were being developed “somewhere up there” and their experience, as anxious mums, was not part of the debate and discussion. It was striking that again and again they came back to the issue of education—education not just for their daughters, but for themselves.

One of my asks for the Minister is that every school should have not just education for girls, but PSHE education for mums and dads. That was the demand that came from the meeting in my constituency, and I think it is a brilliant demand, because lots of mums there said that they did not really know what their daughter or son was seeing on the internet. They did not realise that internet safety should mean that they keep the family computer in a room where they can see what is going on. They should not allow their sons to have access to computers in their bedrooms, because if they do, they will be looking at things that mum and dad do not want them to see.

[Pauline Latham]

I arranged an evening in a school to talk about just that. I invited two lots of parents from two very large schools to talk about what was happening. Do you know how many actually came? It was an official meeting at the school, and I had the then Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and child protection people there. Twenty people came, and most of those were teachers. There were probably four or five parents.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I think that part of the reason for this situation is that we do this education too late. I do not know whether the hon. Lady’s school was a primary or a secondary school, but if we did it in primary schools, with which parents have a more intimate relationship, it is more likely that parents would do it. I think that we should do it in primary schools.

In Slough earlier this week, I talked about this issue at a meeting—a kind of youth question time for parliamentary candidates and their MP. A young woman came up to me and said, “Do you know what? The PSHE I got was much too late. It was when I was in year 10 or 11—something like that. Actually, it’s in year 7 that you are trying to make your first relationships with boyfriends.” I had the impression that she had been a victim of exploitation. She did not say anything that implied that she had been, but the fact that she wanted to take me into a corner and talk to me about this made me feel that she had been vulnerable and had not known what to do about her vulnerability. My anxiety about the welcome announcement from the Secretary of State is that this education will not happen young enough.

I used to teach year 6 in primary school. Some of my colleague teachers—this was a lifetime ago—were frightened of doing sex education, so I tended to be the person who did it, but I think that we have gone past that. It is really important that before girls have boyfriends and develop a sense of their own sexuality, they are able to have these conversations with trusted adults who can advise them on ways to be resilient to exploitation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

1. What steps she is taking to end modern slavery.

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

This Government are determined to stamp out the abhorrent crime of modern slavery. The Modern Slavery Bill will give law enforcement agencies the tools to tackle modern slavery, and enhance support and protection for victims. We will shortly publish our modern slavery strategy setting out wider work to tackle these terrible crimes. I was pleased to announce on Thursday the appointment of Kevin Hyland as designate independent anti-slavery commissioner.

[Pauline Latham]

Does my right hon. Friend share my belief that Government alone cannot end modern slavery and we also need businesses to take a lead and play their part in this? What steps has she taken to achieve that?

[Mrs May]

I absolutely agree that dealing with this crime is about more than action by Government. That is why I am pleased that we have introduced into the Modern Slavery Bill a clause that requires larger businesses to show what they are doing to ensure that slavery is not taking place in their supply chains. We must all work together on this issue. I am pleased that we have been able to introduce that amendment, and I am sure that it will be supported throughout this House.

Modern Slavery Bill

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to take part in this important debate on the Modern Slavery Bill, particularly as it has such cross-party support. The House will lead the way in Europe. I hope that many other countries follow our legislation.

Last Friday, I attended the launch of Derby’s United Nations bid to end human trafficking, which the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Derby, Dr Redfern, very kindly hosted. On the previous Monday, he hosted a summit at which 80 mainly local organisations were in attendance. He explained that human trafficking was the second most profitable crime in the world. The crime of modern-day slavery is growing, and there is therefore a need to legislate against it. People are being treated as objects and commodities, and there is a need to respond.

In fact, Derby will be only the second UK city to be part of the United Nations global cities compact, if we decide to go down that route. I was not surprised to hear that large-scale human trafficking operations and widespread sexual and economic exploitation were taking place in Derby and Derbyshire. One of the most shocking examples of sexual slavery given at the talk were the findings of Operation Retriever, which happened some time ago. The operation unearthed a network of 13 men in Derby who would cruise the city streets in the hope of picking up, grooming and raping teenage girls, who were often vulnerable. Some of the girls were even imprisoned in the flats of their abusers, and subjected to acts of gang rape that were on occasion filmed. Although it is undeniable that the Derbyshire constabulary did a fantastic job in unearthing that terrible conspiracy, more should be done to assist care givers and Government agency staff in spotting the signs of sexual exploitation.

In Operation Retriever, the victims were internally trafficked. However, the later Operation Kern discovered that young women were being brought over from Latvia to work as prostitutes in Ripley. I welcome the preventive measures that the Bill will introduce, namely the police’s ability to stop and search aeroplanes, trucks and other vehicles they believe to be involved with trafficking, but there remains a huge disincentive—the risk of deportation —for trafficked foreign nationals to contact the police to alert them to their situation. In line with that, one thing that the Bishop of Derby has called for is a 24-hour hotline not run by the police that victims can call if they are being exploited. Although I am aware that such schemes exist, I believe that the Government should provide the organisations running them with more revenue to advertise their services, to prevent prolonged abuse at the hands of traffickers.

Although 79% of human trafficking involves some form of sexual exploitation, it can take many forms. In 2013, seven people were arrested for human trafficking offences and money laundering in Derby as part of Operation Atwood. Eleven Slovakian men were detained in several homes across the city in deplorable conditions, and had their identities used for fraudulent claims by their captors. Once again, the failure to recognise the signs of human trafficking led to the abuse of those vulnerable adults. It is shocking that no one identified it sooner.

The bar to fighting human trafficking and modern slavery is the identification of victims. Derbyshire constabulary has told me that one of its biggest problems is that the majority of trafficking victims it deals with are foreign nationals, many of whom do not trust the police in their own countries. The constabulary has trained its officers to gear their approach towards compassionate victim support, meaning that those vulnerable individuals will not feel intimidated to speak out for fear of reprisals or deportation. Many victims of modern slavery could be forced to commit crimes by their captors and are frightened to come forward for that reason. I believe that the Bill’s creation of modern slavery as a defence in such cases will encourage many more exploited people to tell the authorities about the abuse that they have faced without the fear of criminal prosecution.

An associated issue that Derbyshire constabulary has raised is that many victims cannot identify that they are being exploited, owing to the disparity between conditions here and conditions in their home nations. I was very pleased to hear that, in order to remedy that, the Derbyshire constabulary has started to produce leaflets in a variety of languages advising potential victims of their rights. I am also very pleased that the Derbyshire force has taken steps to work with partner agencies, and has started a poster campaign to notify them of the appropriate contacts should they suspect that an individual is the subject of some form of exploitation.

I am hopeful that the reforms to the law in the Bill will positively affect the lives of many thousands of particularly vulnerable people in this country. The new civil penalties against those convicted of modern slavery will ensure that their victims can survive financially after their ordeal, and the defence of modern slavery will encourage those vulnerable people to come forward without fear of reprisals.

The Bill does a great deal to help exploited people, but it must be supported by good policing and community engagement, as has been exemplified in Derbyshire constabulary’s excellent work in that regard. That is why I believe that the Home Office should do all it can to encourage in the form of media campaigns awareness of the signs of exploitation, and to encourage the appropriate training of the police force to incentivise victims to come forward.

Finally, I offer my appreciation to the Lord Bishop of Derby, Dr Redfern, for his thoughtful and thorough work in Derbyshire and the other place on modern slavery and trafficking, and for bringing this important issue to the attention of the wider community in Derbyshire.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I am pleased that she still enjoys swimming—and may she continue to enjoy it for many years to come. She made an important point about competition. Competition can be great, but not everyone likes it. We want people to be active and to enjoy sport, which is why changes have been made to the national curriculum to provide a broad range of team and individual activities such as dance that will appeal to those who may be a little less competitive.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

5. What recent assessment she has made of the value of tourism to the British economy.

[Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)]

7. What recent assessment she has made of the value of tourism to the British economy.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)]

Tourism is at the heart of the Government’s growth agenda. It is one of the largest export industries in the UK. It helps to rebalance our economy, generates investment and creates jobs, and it is at the centre of the country’s economic recovery.

[Pauline Latham]

Derwent Valley Mills is a world heritage site that extends throughout my constituency and beyond, but families currently have nowhere to take their children so that they can cycle safely between the mills. I have set up a cycling group, which is considering the possibility of putting a cycling track well away from the traffic to make it safe. How can the Secretary of State help me to ensure—in conjunction with the Olympic legacy—that children are encouraged to keep active, while also being able to enjoy a piece of history?

[Maria Miller]

Through that excellent local initiative, my hon. Friend has demonstrated that culture and sport are never too far apart, and I commend her for the work she has done. The integrated transport block grant that local authorities receive for small transport improvement schemes, including cycling schemes, is potentially an important source of funding for the project in her constituency, as it enables local authorities to come up with the solutions that are most suitable for their areas and for projects of that kind.

Modern-day Slavery

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is the first occasion on which you have occupied the Chair while I have been in the Chamber, and I congratulate you on your election.

Slavery takes a huge number of forms. I am pleased to note that, apart from the first speaker in the debate, no one has decided to make party political points, because this should not be a party political issue. It should be cross-party, and I think that everyone else has taken that route.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I do not think that I did make party political points. I welcomed the cross-party consensus on the issue, and praised the Government for their Bill. I did ask the Minister to go a bit further here and there, but I did that in common with Labour Members, and I do not think it fair to suggest that I made a party political speech.

[Pauline Latham]

Perhaps the hon. Lady feels that she did not do so, but I disagree with her on that.

As I have said, slavery takes a huge number of forms. I do not want to focus on international trafficking, although, having recently returned from Burma, I know that the Burmese fear that, following the opening of their borders, an increasing number of young girls will be taken to Thailand for trafficking. We should bear it in mind that they may end up in this country as well, and I think that the police and border agencies should look out for young girls coming here from Burma. Over the last few years, I have been made aware of slavery, trafficking, and the fact that people are groomed.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), a former Minister, spoke at an event that I organised recently in my constituency, along with Sheila Taylor, an old friend of mine from Derbyshire who set up and used to work for Safe and Sound Derby but is now a member of a committee that advises the Government, and members of CROP —Collective Response of Parents to Child Sexual Exploitation—who work with victims. I also invited the parents of children attending two secondary schools, both of which have between 1,300 and 1,500 pupils. The parents were very white and middle-class; the area that I am talking about is very much a leafy suburb. What shocked me was the small number who turned up to hear those very impressive speakers. Allowing for the fact that each of them might have had two children at one or other of the two schools, I think that there was probably a potential for 1,500 to turn up, but fewer than 20 did so. One or two teachers came along.

I think there is an attitude of, “It doesn’t happen here, does it? It happens in inner cities, it happens abroad, it happens anywhere but in leafy suburbs.” I set up this event because I had spoken to a constituent whose husband had been trafficking some children, particularly her daughter’s best friend. He had been working with these children, grooming them. He has been to prison, but is now out and is still trying to see these children. So this happens all over the world, including on our own back doorstep. I was interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) talking about a brothel on the street where he had lived more or less all his life and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talking about the terrible problems he had had in his constituency.

Derby was one of the first areas to deal with this issue and it had Operation Retriever. A lot of men were grooming women and taking them off to Birmingham and other places, but these men have all been prosecuted and some have gone to prison. The men were from the inner city, but the children they were trafficking were not—again, they were often from very respectable backgrounds. There is a big problem with parents thinking, as they do about grooming and the internet, that their children are not going to be caught up in this. There is an obligation on every one of us in this House to try to make people aware of what might be happening on their back doorstep.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

My hon. Friend made the point that this is all around us and she talked about the internet. If we turn to the adverts section in the back pages of our local paper, we will find sex for sale adverts. Should we not heed the words of Detective Inspector Hyland, who says that we should all take action in our local communities to challenge editors of local papers when sex for sale adverts advertise brothels, which are very much linked to trafficking? We can all take steps to try to rid those papers of such adverts.

[Pauline Latham]

That was an interesting contribution and I will now look much more carefully at the Derby Telegraph, as I was not aware of it having adverts for sex. I will look very carefully when I go home this weekend to see whether my local newspaper is part of this selling of sex. If it is, we should be challenging our local editors and saying that they should not be perpetuating this industry.

I do not know how many people are aware that Barnardo’s is working hard to come up with specialist foster placements for children who have been trafficked. It is important that we use as many agencies as we can to help these children, who are mainly, but not exclusively, girls, and give them a proper life after they have come out of this terrible situation. I commend Barnardo’s for the work it is doing. We could probably engage with and help to fund other organisations to help with that work.

I am pleased that the Government are making the effort to introduce this modern slavery Bill, because every day we see things in the national newspapers, and on national and local television, about different situations where girls, in particular, have been trafficked. It is often large groups of men who are grooming these children and moving them along to other cities. I know that the children in Derby were taken to Leeds and Birmingham—they were taken all over the country. They did not know where they were, because they did not know the geography of the country, and they could not escape because they were terrified.

I feel strongly that the Government are working hard to put in place measures to stop this happening, and I look forward to getting the Bill before the House. Every one of us has a duty to speak out about this. I am pleased that we have heard from quite a lot of speakers, but of course it is difficult to get many speakers to participate on a Thursday afternoon. I am sorry about that, because this is such an important subject. I congratulate the Minister on the work he is doing. I am pleased to hear that the Prime Minister is behind this, as is the Home Secretary, and that everyone is working together to rid this country of this evil.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

I agree that it is a serious problem, and that is why the Home Secretary and I have been working to deal with it. The six-point plan includes Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary looking specifically at police referrals to the CPS, reviewing the use of out-of-court disposals for these cases, and convening a national scrutiny panel to look at the trends in, for example, rape referral levels. We are taking these matters very seriously. As I said, I am meeting the DPP this week.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s decision last week to introduce Clare’s law and, in parallel, domestic violence protection orders. Does the Minister agree that those two steps will do a great deal to protect women against domestic violence?

[Norman Baker]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and welcome the action she has taken for a long time on these matters. The pilot schemes for both Clare’s law and the protection orders demonstrated that they were useful. They were well used in the pilot areas and make a difference in driving down the incidence of domestic violence.