Illegal Migration Bill

Peter Bone Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not able to give that assurance today, but I will give it careful consideration and come back to the right hon. Gentleman. We must ensure that we give this careful consideration and get these difficult judgments right, and that we learn the lessons from when children have been detained in the recent past. I know he is very aware of that and through his constituency duties has been very involved with the immigration removal centre in his constituency.

We want to ensure that we only detain children in the most limited circumstances and in the right forms of accommodation, with the correct scrutiny and accountability. I have recently spoken with the Children’s Commissioner and asked her to assist us and give us her expert opinion in the further policy development that we intend to do. I am keen to work with any hon. Member across the House who has expertise to bring to bear on the issue.

I turn now to the question raised in Committee regarding modern slavery and to amendment 4 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), supported by, among others, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). They are both international champions of this issue and have played critical roles in establishing the UK as a leading force in modern slavery prevention and the protection of those who have proven to be victims. This issue of modern slavery is also addressed in amendments 12 and 16 in the name of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and amendments 73 and 74 in the name of the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss).

The Bill is intended to stop the boats. People are risking their lives by making dangerous crossings and putting unprecedented pressure on our public services. Amending these clauses to create exemptions that could lead to abuse of modern slavery protections, and risk undermining the very purpose of the Bill, is something that we must think very carefully about.

I understand, of course, that in the preparation of their amendments my right hon. Friends the Members for Chingford and Woodford Green and for Maidenhead, and others, have thought in particular about how we can prevent individuals who have been in the UK for a sustained period from being exploited by human traffickers, or, if they are already being exploited, from being deterred from escaping that modern slavery, or raising concerns with civil society or law enforcement bodies. Those are serious issues, and I want to take them forward with my right hon. Friends, listening to their unrivalled expertise through the passage of the Bill, to see whether there are ways we can address and assuage their concerns. For that reason, we will look at what more we can do to provide additional protections to individuals who have suffered exploitation in the UK.

I remind my right hon. Friends that the modern slavery provisions in the Bill are time-limited, recognising the exceptional circumstances we currently face in respect of the illegal and dangerous channel crossings. Unless renewed, the provisions will expire two years after commencement. They take advantage of an express provision within the European convention on action against trafficking, which foresaw that there might be circumstances in which there was a sufficient risk to public disorder, or a crisis that merited taking this kind of action. The Government would argue that we are in that moment now, and for that reason we need to apply that limited exemption.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Minister has rightly singled out two of my colleagues with flattery to try to help him—but he did not single me out, so he is going to get it in the neck. Suppose a 16-year-old in Moldova is told that she has a job in a restaurant in Belfast. She is provided with a Romanian passport. She comes across here on an aeroplane, with false documents, but when she gets to Belfast, she does not get a job. She is put in a terraced house and forced into prostitution; the lock is on the outside of the bedroom and she is effectively repeatedly raped. The police break that ring and rescue her. What happens then? At the moment, she gets protection, she is looked after and she helps with the prosecution. This Bill changes that. Can the Minister please tell me why? This person has been trafficked, not on a small boat, and exploited here. Why can he not accept the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith)? It seems to me that there is no risk. I want his Bill to succeed, but this is—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I call the Minister.

Points of Order

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of this House, and I am sure he knows that there are routes by which he can request that a statement be made. I have to tell him that at this point we have had no notice of a statement, but his comments will have been heard and I am sure they will be fed back to the Secretary of State.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am afraid that I could not give you notice of this point of order because it follows the SNP’s Standing Order No. 24 application. It seems to me that the reason today’s debate on the Illegal Migration Bill finishes at the moment of interruption is that there was a programme motion. When I first came into the House, I routinely voted against programme motions. It seems to me to be a good thing that we debate things at length, and I would have been quite happy to sit through the night debating this issue. So unless I am mistaken, the problem is that these wretched programme motions keep getting tabled and the House keeps voting for them. Is that correct?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He is correct to say that there was a programme motion, and I believe that the SNP voted against it. However, the programme motion was passed. He was a Deputy Leader of the House, I understand. Yes, I recall very well his time as Deputy Leader of the House. He might want to make his points to the Procedure Committee, which might well look at them, especially in the light of his time as Deputy Leader of the House, when he might have tabled some programme motions himself—I am not sure.

[Mr Bone]

indicated dissent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman assures me that he did not do that, so there is perhaps even more reason for him to make his representations to the Procedure Committee.

Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of human trafficking and modern slavery.

I am grateful to Mr Speaker for rescheduling this debate. Unfortunately, I had flu when it was first scheduled; I am not entirely sure I am over it, so I might croak my way through my speech. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.

I thank the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines), for appearing today to respond to this important and timely debate, and I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), and the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), for being here. I thank my exceptionally talented senior parliamentary assistant, Isobelle Jackson, for the preparation of this speech; my parliamentary assistant, Jack Goodenough, for his assistance; and Tatiana Gren-Jardan, the head of the modern slavery unit at the Centre for Social Justice and at Justice and Care, who has helped me a lot with the research for this debate and over many years on the issue of human trafficking. I know that they will be watching this debate closely.

When I was first elected a Member of Parliament in 2005, I had a letter posted to my constituency office. It was anonymous, but the person who wrote it was a prostitute from Northampton. She was very concerned about what was happening to young women who were being brought into this country and forced into prostitution in Northamptonshire. That was the first time I had come across human trafficking, and from that moment on, I began to campaign on the issue. I have served as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking, and I am the chairman of the parliamentary advisory group on modern slavery and the supply chain. Given that the House is considering a Bill that will affect provisions of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, this debate could not be more relevant. Having said that, its purpose is not to scrutinise the Illegal Migration Bill; it is about the crime of human trafficking.

In debates concerning small boat crossings or modern slavery laws, I often hear the terms “human trafficking” and “people smuggling” used interchangeably. In fact, each has a distinct meaning, and the language we use when describing these criminal activities matters. I sometimes throw things at the TV when I hear Ministers using the wrong terminology. Let us get this sorted out. According to the United Nations, migrant smuggling is

“the facilitation, for financial or other material gain, of irregular entry into a country where the migrant is not a national or resident.”

The people being smuggled have willingly paid smugglers—often large sums of money—to help them enter a chosen country. In so far as a country can be defined as a victim of crime, the victims of smuggling are the countries where the borders have been breached.

On the other hand, human trafficking is defined as

“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit.”

Victims of human trafficking are individuals who are coerced into being exploited in the most horrendous conditions. They often arrive in the UK legally, with valid visas and passports. However, the largest group of people referred to the national referral mechanism are British nationals. Some 80% of the British nationals referred are children exploited for criminal, labour and sexual purposes in their own country, and one in five—3,337—of the potential victims found in the UK last year was a British child.

The national referral mechanism is the Government’s mechanism for supporting the victims of human trafficking. When I started to campaign on the issue of human trafficking, alongside Anthony Steen, the former Member for Totnes, human trafficking was not recognised as a crime in this country. It was not even recognised as happening. Anthony Steen has gone on to set up the Human Trafficking Foundation, which serves as a secretariat for the APPG. It was a pleasure to meet up with Anthony last week. He almost single-handedly brought the issue of human trafficking to the attention of this Parliament, and we are greatly indebted to him for that. He is an absolute star. Some of the things he used to get up to even I would blush at. He would somehow talk his way into a Romanian prison to speak to traffickers—just amazing.

During my time as chairman, the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern slavery travelled to Europe and further afield to understand and learn from existing frameworks relating to modern slavery. The group visited Europol so as to understand the international approach to identifying traffickers, and we met with the Dutch rapporteur, who was a former judge.

National rapporteurs are an initiative originating in the Council of Europe, under which Governments are encouraged to appoint an independent rapporteur to report on the Government’s actions against human trafficking. In the case of the Dutch rapporteur, once the office was established, it was recognised that she had helped the Government, because she did not just criticise; she promoted the good things that were being done.

When I started campaigning for a national rapporteur in this country, we had to overcome two problems. First, the name clearly sounded too French, so there was no way I could recommend that, but that was easy to fix. We changed the name to independent commissioner —job done. The second problem was much more difficult. It was to explain to the Home Office that it needed to do this. The Home Office resisted.

Initially, the Home Office created what it considered to be an equivalent to a rapporteur, an interdepartmental ministerial group. Sir Humphrey would have been proud. The group proved largely ineffective and met infrequently, normally with a large number of ministerial absences. Eventually, however, pressure from the APPG forced the Government to appoint an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 imposed a duty on the Home Secretary to make such an appointment. The first commissioner was Kevin Hyland. He was replaced by Dame Sara Thornton, who was appointed in May 2019. She left in April 2022. Since then, there has been no Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. At the same time, suspected cases of human trafficking have hit an all-time high, and Parliament is scrutinising the Illegal Migration Bill, which clearly has implications for human trafficking.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech on important issues. I wonder whether I might lift his gaze to the global situation. The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are 50 million people in modern slavery, a large number of whom are in south and south-east Asia and involved in textiles, construction and fishing. Many of them will never leave, for example, the same brick kiln. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is incumbent on the UK Government to challenge Governments in the countries concerned to look at what is happening, and to challenge businesses here to ensure that goods produced in this way do not end up in UK supply chains? Does he agree that we all have a role to play in that important work?

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend raises an important factor, and there are more slaves in the world now than in Wilberforce’s day. That is an issue that Parliament is looking at in particular, so as to ensure that nobody in the supply chains for this Parliament is a slave. However, a year or so ago, we did find a product that was produced by slaves, so it is important that we use our soft power. If I were spending our overseas aid budget, that is where I would put a lot of the money, because there would be real benefit for everyone involved.

[Andrew Selous]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that story had a good ending? We went back to that business in Malaysia, and the conditions for the workers are now improved. We effected real-world change for the better, and we should count that as a positive result.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we discover something in this House, as he says, we correct it. We do not just say, “We are not going to use that product.” We go back and improve the situation, which is entirely the right approach.

It is not good enough that we do not have an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. The only conclusion that people can draw is that the Home Office does not want independent scrutiny of human trafficking. I cannot see any other reason for it. In 2022, almost 17,000 potential victims of human trafficking were referred to the national referral mechanism—an increase of 33% on the previous year. Last year, the average number of days that a victim waited for a conclusive grounds decision was 543. That is an improvement on the previous year, when it was 560-odd days. In about 100 years’ time, we will probably get it down to an acceptable level. We are creating a huge backlog in the system and stretching the resources available to support survivors of human trafficking.

In last year’s Queen’s Speech, the Government promised a new modern slavery Bill. In addition, a new modern slavery strategy had been promised in spring 2021. That was in response to the 2019 independent review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which suggested improvements. To date, neither the Bill nor the strategy has been forthcoming. The independent review had four main topics of focus, one of which was the safeguarding of child victims of modern slavery. That issue has long been a source of personal frustration to me.

As I have said, almost 80% of UK nationals referred to the NRM are children. The situation regarding the safeguarding of children who may have been trafficked is unique, in that the provision of care for trafficked adults is far better than that for trafficked children. Where else in Government do we look after adults better than children? I made that point during my Westminster Hall debate over 10 years ago. I recounted how in 2010 I went to a safe home in the Philippines, where there were children who had been trafficked and had experienced the worst kind of abuse—in the Philippines it was largely prostitution. They received specialist support and went to school. They were in a safe environment, and after a few years, they left a changed person. In fact, I had the great pleasure of attending a wedding of a former trafficked child who had gone through that process. There is no reason why this country could not offer the same standard of care. We should learn from best practice elsewhere, and could offer more specialist support and rehabilitation to trafficked children in this country.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and for everything that he is saying, which I reinforce. I had a meeting with the International Justice Mission a couple of weeks ago, which has been working in India for 20 years. It has created child advocates—effectively magistrates. When they find a trafficked child, they go into the care of the advocacy group, which makes sure that all the support services, police and justice services do their duty by that child. Does he agree that that is a really useful model that we could learn from?

[Mr Bone]

I will talk a little about that, and what the Government are doing for children. Unfortunately, it is not working. I will come to that.

In this country, child victims of trafficking are treated similarly to any other at-risk child, and are under the primary care of local authorities. That often means that they are placed in care with non-trafficked children, where security and staff observation is limited. They are supposed to have an independent child trafficking guardian. That does not work, and still does not apply in all areas of the country. I say it does not work; I will explain further a little later, but too many of the children disappear and are re-trafficked. They go missing from local authority care. That does not happen under the system for looking after adult victims of trafficking. In 2020, Every Child Protected Against Trafficking UK, which originally provided the secretariat to the APPG on human trafficking and modern slavery, found that one third of trafficked children go missing from local authority care. The average number of “missing” episodes per child was eight—significantly higher than for other children in local authority care.

I am describing a system where a child who has been subject to trafficking and horrific child abuse is put into a children’s home with other non-trafficked children and has no increased security. The child abusers can locate the child and traffic them all over again. The criminal gangs have got even smarter: if there is good access to the home, they bring it into their business model. They leave the children in the children’s home—that is free accommodation and food—and take them away on demand to be used as prostitutes. Then they return them to the home. How can that possibly, in any way, be right? In effect, local government is inadvertently becoming a partner of the human trafficking business. That is frankly a scandalous failure in our duty of care to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

By contrast, when it comes to adults, the Salvation Army has been the prime contractor for what is apparently called the Government’s modern slavery victim care contract for the last 11 years. When that started, the Salvation Army became the overarching body in charge. The trick that the Government did—this is a great credit to them—was not to give the money to the Salvation Army to spend, but to ensure that it worked with partners across the UK, including groups interested in looking after victims of human trafficking and, quite often, faith groups. That added value produced a really successful way of looking after adult victims of human trafficking. They get support with accommodation, translation services, financial subsistence, and transport, as well as bespoke support based on victims’ needs, which is administered by the Salvation Army and its partners. Without doubt, we look after adult victims better than child victims.

It is absolutely crucial that we give world-leading care to both adult and child victims, both from a compassionate perspective, and to prevent re-trafficking and encourage survivors to help bring the evil criminals to justice. The charity Justice and Care has pioneered the introduction of victim navigators. Importantly, victim navigators are independent of but integrated with police officers working on modern slavery cases. Victim navigators have access to the relevant police systems and can share information with victims, which builds trust and frees up police time. Victim navigators take on the responsibilities related to survivor support, meeting survivors’ needs and keeping them updated on the criminal investigation. The navigators have helped to safely repatriate 32 survivors to 17 different countries, and find local contacts in those countries that can continue to provide support.

Justice and Care victim navigators benefit from the relationship and partnership with the police but retain their independence, giving survivors a more assessable ally at the point of rescue. This work has been extraordinarily successful: 92% of victims supported by a navigator were willing to engage on some level with police, and victims who had access to the services of navigators were five times more likely to engage in supporting a prosecution than were victims in a sample of non-navigator-supported cases. Hon. Members should not take my word for it. One survivor said:

“He’s done everything for me. Every bit of support I’ve needed. If it weren’t for”

the navigator,

“I would have been lost honestly…If I didn’t have”

the navigator,

“I wouldn’t have gone through with the case. I wouldn’t have had the strength I had to do it…I couldn’t have done it without him.”

An awful lot of people—from the left, I have to say—want to look after the victims of human trafficking, and that is an honourable thing to do. Having a right-wing chairman was a problem for the left-wing members of the all-party group, but I said to them: “Let’s stop people being victims. I would rather stop them becoming victims than look after them after they have gone through huge abuse.” One way of doing that is prosecuting these evil criminal gangs. The victim navigator service was independently evaluated between September 2018 and June 2022 and was found to be so successful that the independent evaluators recommended that it be rolled out nationwide.

In 2021, there were 93 prosecutions and 33 convictions for modern slavery offences, as a principal offence, under the Modern Slavery Act. On an all-offence basis, including where modern slavery charges are brought alongside more serious charges, there were 342 prosecutions and 114 convictions. Hon. Members might say that that is good, but it is actually shockingly poor. There were 9,661 recorded modern slavery crimes in 2021-22; in fact, the National Crime Agency estimates that between 6,000 and 8,000 offenders are involved in modern slavery crimes in the UK. Victim navigators will clearly help to increase the prosecution rate, but modern slavery is currently a low-risk, high-reward crime, and low prosecutions are not the only indicator of that.

Analysing sentencing is crucial to understanding the outcomes for modern slavery offenders. In 2021, fewer than one third of offenders with modern slavery as a principal offence received a custodial sentence of four years or more. In the past five years, no offender with modern slavery as a principal offence has received a life sentence, and only one has received a sentence of more than 15 years. The average custodial sentence for modern slavery offences in 2021 was four years and one month. That is less than half that recorded for rape, yet the young women forced into brothels as victims of human trafficking are, effectively, repeatedly raped. On a sentence of four years and one month, the person will probably be out within two years. If we do not get serious about prosecuting, the police can break up more modern slavery networks, which they are very good at, and the victim navigators can support victims properly to bring the case to trial, but their hard work will be undermined by poor prosecutions.

I said that this debate is not about the Illegal Migration Bill, but I hope you will forgive me for going back on that a bit, Mr Betts. Without getting too entrenched in a discussion of the Bill, I must say that I fully support the Government’s ambition to end the small boats crisis. That is the No. 1 issue for my constituents in Wellingborough, and it is absolutely vital that we stop the boats. Although I established a clear distinction between people smuggling and human trafficking, there are some things that unite them. Those running both evil trades regard people entirely as commodities; they care nothing for the lives they destroy or endanger.

Returning those who have been illegally smuggled into the UK to their country of origin or a safe third country is essential to dismantling the business model of the evil people smugglers. However, in doing that, we must be careful that we do not undermine protections for genuine victims. Victims of modern slavery who are rescued from abuse in this country must have the security that they will not face deportation as a consequence of coming forward. Many foreign nationals rescued from modern slavery in the UK want to return to their country of origin and familiar support networks, and have done so, and that is fine; they should be supported in doing that. However, the threat of deportation may undermine efforts to bring about prosecutions, by deterring victims from coming forward.

Some survivors’ immigration status may have become irregular while they were under the control of traffickers, perhaps due to a visa expiring. Others may have arrived in the country illegally, and their abusers may use the threat of deportation to continue to exert control over them. The Illegal Migration Bill needs to make a distinction between those who are identified on arrival at the UK as having been trafficked, and those who are identified as such later. We must not do anything that stops support being given to those who have been moved to the UK and suffered abuse, who have clearly been trafficked.

The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 established temporary leave to remain for confirmed victims of human trafficking, as is absolutely right. That should not be, effectively, overridden by the Illegal Migration Bill, and I hope the Minister can reassure me on that point—my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) raised similar concerns yesterday in Committee on the Bill. Will the Minister be so good as to meet me and other concerned Members before the Bill’s Report and Third Reading?

Finally, I thank the Government for the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and all the things we have done to protect victims of human trafficking. We lead Europe in this regard, and that is fantastic. I just want to ensure that that continues and that we do not move backwards in any way.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

This is wonderful, Mr Betts. I get to sit in the Chair that you have, and when we come to Westminster Hall we have a debate that is non-political about an important issue. I have learned from people’s contributions today, so I thank everyone for attending. The Minister dealt with her speech on an important subject at rapid speed. I am grateful that she has agreed to a meeting to look into the problems of the Illegal Migration Bill and modern day slavery. I thank her for that and I thank everyone for attending.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of human trafficking and modern slavery.

Illegal Migration Bill

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Our 10-point plan has many elements. We need to introduce legislation to stop the boats coming in the first place. We then need to bear down on our asylum backlog, so that the number of people accommodated in hotels and in limbo is dramatically reduced. That is the fair thing to do. It is the compassionate thing to do.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

People coming across in small boats are smuggled. They spend thousands of pounds to get here. People who are trafficked come here without paying any money or are duped and forced into exploitation. However, many coming across in small boats claim exemption under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Has the Home Secretary taken that into account? I am emphatic that this abuse is damaging the genuine victims of human trafficking.

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It used to take 100 days to consider a modern slavery claim. It now takes more than 500 days, because there has been a massive influx of people claiming to be victims of modern slavery, which impedes our ability to help genuine victims of modern slavery, which is not good for anyone.

Crime and Neighbourhood Policing

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

If you are forcing a Division, Mr Bone, you must follow your voice and you must vote that way.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Of course, Sir.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Of course, I am not going to comment on the particular details of this case. It is a very sad case and a very worrying case, and I am very concerned about the safety and security of the sites at Western Jet Foil and Manston. We evacuated the people from Western Jet Foil to Manston, and they are now back at Western Jet Foil. There has been a huge amount of effort by the authorities and I am very grateful to them.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that anyone listening to these exchanges could only conclude that Opposition Members are more interested in illegal economic migrants than in law-abiding British people?

[Suella Braverman]

As my hon. Friend will know, one of the promises in the 2019 manifesto was to reduce overall numbers when it came to migration, and also to fix the problem of illegal migration. He and I both campaigned to leave the European Union, and 17 million people voted for control over their borders. That is what this Government will deliver.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

First, on our accounting officer advice, we should always put this in the context of asylum costs that are soaring across the United Kingdom—and have been for many years because of the number of people coming here illegally—and the costs and strain that that puts on the system, particularly during the pandemic. As Chair of the Home Affairs Committee—this issue has been discussed in the Committee many times, including when it was chaired by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—the right hon. Lady will know about the impact of covid on asylum claims. She also asked about payments, but we do not speak about operational costs right now—[Interruption.] Yes, it is taxpayers’ money. That is for a range of reasons, but primarily because of commercial sensitivities in terms of how we run our operations.

The House should recognise that when we have mob rule turning up to thwart our charter flights—some of them have ended up in courts—it is right that we keep our commercial operators, and the way they work with the Home Office, confidential. The right hon. Lady asked about payment mechanisms to Rwanda as part of the partnership deal, and we would be happy to drop her a line and share that information with her.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

People who are trafficked into this country, or duped or coerced, are exploited for sexual or labour purposes. People who are smuggled into this country willingly pay to be so, and come for economic purposes. The first group are victims and deserve the protection of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The second group are not, and deserve no protection from that Act, which is being abused by people who are coming across in small boats. I hope the Home Secretary can sort this out.

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on this issue, for which he is a committed and passionate advocate, and for the way he has worked with us in the Home Office on many of these challenging issues. There is a difference between trafficking and smuggling, and he is aware of some of the issues that have been materially rising over a number of years, and that thwart the removal and deportations not just of people who come to our country illegally, but also of foreign national offenders. He is referring to the national referral mechanism, and many of the challenges that are now used—with intent, it is fair to say—by some of the specialist law firms in the claims being made.

I look forward to continuing to work with my hon. Friend, because it is clearly in our national interest to ensure that the right safeguards are in place for people who need our help and support. That is what the Modern Day Slavery Act is about, and we cannot allow people to exploit it for the wrong aims.

Asylum Seekers: Removal to Rwanda

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just say to those who were late into the Chamber that they will not be called? The rules are clear; I gave three minutes, and I am sorry, but I cannot take questions from those who came in after that. It is not my fault that the Whips did not send a message out.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on getting the urgent question, but I will not congratulate him on the language that he used, or the shadow Home Secretary on the language that she used. Mixing up the difference between smugglers and traffickers shows little knowledge of the subject.

We hear that a number of the people who were to be on the flight to Rwanda tomorrow have somehow—miraculously—got some leftie lawyer to intervene and stop it. May I suggest to the Minister that instead of booking 50 people on to each flight to Rwanda, he books 250 people so that, when half the people are stopped from travelling, we would still have a full flight? Come on—get on and send them.

[Tom Pursglove]

As ever, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his suggestion, which I very much take on board. For obvious reasons, I am not in a position to comment on operational matters, but his point is well made and well argued, as his points often are.

Foreign National Offender Removal Flights

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his contribution, but let me deal with some facts in responding to it. First, I can be very clear for the House’s benefit that more than 10,000 foreign national offenders have been removed from our country since 2019. [Interruption.] Opposition Members are making lots of gestures, but one thing they will recognise, I am sure, is that we have had a pandemic during the last two years, and I think all Members probably realise and recognise the impact that that has had on business as usual in the returns and deportation space. I can also confirm for the House that the vast majority of removals from our country are to European economic area countries, and of course that applies to enforced returns.

The hon. Member mentioned Windrush. This issue is of course completely unrelated to Windrush. None of those being returned are British citizens or nationals, or members of the Windrush generation. Each person’s return is considered on its individual merits and carefully assessed against a background of relevant case law and in the light of published country information, which covers country-specific issues. The case of each person being returned on a charter to Jamaica is referred to the Windrush taskforce, and it is right and proper that that work is done. I can also add—[Interruption.] Well, it is right that this is done properly. Legal aid was also raised. Of course, people can access legal support in detention in the usual way.

The Blair and Brown Governments took an entirely pragmatic and eminently sensible approach to these matters. [Interruption.] Well, I give credit where it is due. Opposition Members criticise, but I will give credit to former Labour Home Secretaries who did the right thing and were committed to ensuring that our laws are upheld, and it is the UK Borders Act 2007 that governs this.

Often, the Opposition talk tough on serious violence, but when they have the opportunity they want, entirely optionally, to let out those who have committed serious violence on our streets, when there are options available to remove them from our country. Labour had the opportunity to change things for the better, but oh no, as always they carp from the sidelines but never have a plan.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My constituents, and I guess most in the United Kingdom, find it unbelievable that convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles who are foreign national offenders are not returned immediately to their countries. Can the Minister tell us how on earth last-minute appeals can stop people going on flights? Surely we can at least have a cut-off date beyond which no appeals can be made. Maybe he can also tell the House whether he has been on one of these flights and what the atmosphere is like.

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour speaks with great authority on these matters, and I know the view that people in Northamptonshire take on this. I have been on a removal flight to Poland a few months ago, which was a useful experience for me to understand the end-to-end process. I am grateful for his support for the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which introduces the one-stop processes and priority removal notices that should enable us to break this cycle of endless dither and delay, and constant appeals and claims, so that those individuals are removed from our country more quickly. His constituents can be assured that we are getting on with delivering this.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Peter Bone Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I will not repeat the many, many occasions on which I have set out on the Floor of the House and in Committee during the Bill’s passage the many and varied safe and legal routes that exist. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, has rightly touched on the need to reform the casework situation, which is precisely what we are doing through the new plan for immigration. I encourage him to be in the right Lobby this evening to help us get on with delivering on that priority, which is one priority among a number as we reform the system.

It is simply unnecessary, inappropriate and unconstitutional for the courts to have a duty to make declarations of incompatibility in circumstances where questions of compliance have already been determined by Parliament, so we cannot accept Lords amendment 5D.

On differentiation, Lords amendments 6D to 6F would make it harder to differentiate by placing significant evidential burdens on the Secretary of State. They would also set out our existing legal obligations on the face of the Bill, such as our duties under the refugee convention and the European convention on human rights, especially the article 8 right to family life. All of this is either unnecessary or unacceptable. We therefore do not accept these amendments.

Finally, the arguments on the right to work have been well rehearsed at several points in the passage of the Bill. In principle, we are concerned about the way in which this would undercut the points-based system, which we believe is the right system for facilitating lawful migration into our country—that skills-based approach, exactly as the British people voted for in the referendum in 2016. I go back to this point: our objective is to speed up caseworking, which then, of itself, ensures that we do not need to go down the route—

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Does the excellent Minister know the majorities the other place had for sending these amendments back to us? Given the large built-in anti-Government majority in the Lords, it seems to me that they must have been quite large.

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend probes me on this with good reason. Off the top of my head, I believe that one of them was won by one vote, one was won by eight votes and one was won by 25 votes. So they are not particularly hefty majorities. The time has come to get on and pass this Bill. This Government’s new plan for immigration will tackle illegal migration and reform the asylum system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it will be a hell of a lot more than what will be returned under the Rwanda scheme. He knows that it is forecast that 23,000 people will seek to make that dangerous journey. The Rwanda scheme will not even scratch the surface. That is the reality. The only way to deal with this problem is through a proper removal agreement.

Only the Labour party can reset the UK’s relationship with France and the EU, and from there strike a robust removal agreement that would truly act as a deterrent against the criminal people smugglers by breaking their business model. A Labour Government would also engage with Europol and the French authorities to create effective co-operation in the pursuit and prosecution of the criminal gangs who are running the people smuggling and human trafficking, rather than the constant war of words with our European partners and allies, which is all we ever get from this headline-chasing Government. Cheap headlines are all they care about, as everybody on the Labour Benches knows.

Thirdly, absolutely none of the Government’s safe and legal routes seems to work. The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme is not even off the ground. The Syria route has been ditched. The Dubs scheme for unaccompanied children has also been cancelled. The Ukraine scheme today had a queue three hours long in Portcullis House of MPs’ staffers fighting for Ukrainians on behalf of their constituents, because the visas simply are not getting processed. Somehow, the Home Secretary has managed to turn an inspiring tale of British generosity into a bureaucratic nightmare. Labour would make safe and legal routes work, which in turn would strike another blow against the people smugglers.

[Mr Bone]

I have a lot of time for the shadow Minister, but he is on a really sticky wicket here. Can he just answer these two questions? Is it the Labour party’s policy that we should not take any migrants to Rwanda? Secondly, is he not then scared that by not doing that it will encourage the evil people smugglers in their work?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Home Secretary’s top civil servant has said that the Rwanda scheme will not work as a deterrent and it delivers no value for money whatever for the British taxpayer. What matters is what works, and that scheme will not work.