Daniel Morgan: Independent Panel Report

Peter Grant Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & Programme motion
Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. Again I reiterate, because I understand the concern, that there is no question of the report being blocked, edited or changed in the ways that people are concerned about. As I said, it will be published. The only caveat is that if there are matters in there that relate to national security, and those are duties that any Home Secretary must abide by, but she and everyone else wants this report to be published and for those questions to be answered. In terms of the date, again, I make this point: we cannot publish something if we do not yet have it.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

I cannot help thinking that if things had been the other way around, and Sun journalists had lied to procure an interview with the late Princess of Wales, and the BBC were alleged to be involved in covering up the reason for a brutal murder on the streets of London, the action on the Government Benches to this and the previous item of business might have been very different.

Can the Minister give an assurance that as soon as what should be an extremely quick check on national security and other concerns has been carried out by the Home Secretary, Parliament will see the report before anyone else? In particular, can she give an assurance that there will be no opportunity for Maxwellisation, which would allow those who were rightly criticised in the report to get their story into the press before the report is made public and made available to Members of Parliament?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am not going to draw analogies between the facts of this terrible, terrible case and the headlines and facts that have emerged in relation to Princess Diana. I think both cases and both people deserve their own moment. The previous urgent question concerned the late princess. This UQ concerns Mr Morgan, so I will confine myself to him. In terms of the process, at the risk of repeating myself, the report has been prepared by the panel. The panel has taken eight years to gather evidence. One can only imagine—I am speculating, because I have not seen it—what the product will be after eight years’ worth of work. That is why, in accordance with the terms of the inquiry, the Home Secretary will make arrangements for it to be laid in Parliament. Of course that means that Parliament will see it.

In relation to the Maxwellisation process, I do not know the process that the panel has gone through, but the Home Secretary has a duty under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 in relation to threats to life, but that is the only consideration that will be in her mind—that, and national security. We have no interest in editing this report—none whatever. We want the truth to come out.

UK Terrorism Threat Level

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

As I have already indicated, we will continue to challenge ourselves as to what more we need to do. As we speak, the Manchester inquiry is rightly asking searching questions and taking evidence clearly. As I said, I know that this is a very difficult and painful time for many people. We want to see that inquiry conclude and to reflect on its recommendations. It is important to state that we have already taken a number of steps, but if there is more learning that we need to take or apply, we will do so.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

The Minister knows that, despite our political differences, I have a great deal of respect for him, so I am sure it was only an oversight that he did not reply to part of the question of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). She reminded us that we all have a responsibility to remember that if we allow the language of hatred and intolerance to become acceptable in our lives, actions of hatred and intolerance will follow.

Last night, for example, election observers from the internationally respected Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe went as far as to accuse the man who claims to be the leader of the free world of deliberate attempts to weaken confidence in the election process. I give the Minister another chance to follow the example of his colleague the Justice Secretary earlier this week in committing to being mindful of the language that he uses and urging all his Cabinet colleagues to do the same.

[James Brokenshire]

As the hon. Gentleman said, we have had a number of discussions on many different fronts over the years. I stand for the rule of law and for our upholding it to ensure that we reflect on seeing it as a core part of our values as a country. Therefore, we stand shoulder to shoulder against those who would seek to create terrorism, whether against lawyers or parts of our community. Terrorism and hatred have no place in our society and the Government will always stand against them.

Major Incident in Essex

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. He hits a raw nerve when he speaks about the families of the victims. The investigation is taking place. There is much more work to do to identify the individuals, their families and their country of origin, and that work is taking place. If I may, I have said that I will come back to the House or to individual Members. I will provide updates once we have more information.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Among those who will have information that could be critical in bringing the perpetrators of this awful crime to justice are people who have been trafficked by the same route and possibly by the same gangs. There is a good chance that some of them are now in hiding, afraid of the UK authorities but terrified out of their wits of those who trafficked them. What assurances can the Home Secretary give that anyone who has the courage to come forward with information on this terrible case will be treated as a victim of a crime, rather than persecuted or prosecuted as a potential criminal?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important and significant point. Anyone who has been trafficked or involved in criminality will be living in fear. However, with the modern slavery legislation and the national referral mechanism, we do have support structures. We actively encourage people—anybody who has any information—to come forward. We will work with them in the right way to ensure that those who have been perpetrating criminality are brought to justice. Where individuals have been victims of trafficking, we can support them in the right way.

Police Surveillance of Journalists

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Journalists provide an incredibly important service in our democracy, and I have been entirely sincere in everything that I have said. I am sure that the hon. Lady is not suggesting that someone should be above the law or receive blanket protection from legitimate investigation in limited circumstances simply because they are a journalist. The right processes, safeguards and checks and balances need to be in place. Frankly, we need the right challenge on law enforcement agencies when they seek authorisations to pursue investigations. I have set out what is in the Investigatory Powers Act, which I believe is a robust process.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The problem is that the police and security services were given these powers to allow them to prevent and detect serious crime, but there is absolutely no suggestion that those now being put under random widespread surveillance committed a crime. If a crime has been committed, it was committed either by a civil servant or a Member of Parliament. We obviously cannot know for certain whether the reports referred to by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) have any accuracy to them, but if they do, they point to the police using their powers not to prevent serious crime, but to intimidate and harass journalists, whose job it is to hold the police and us to account. Will the Minister undertake to carry out a review, reporting in Privy Council terms if necessary, into the Met Police’s actions, so that this Parliament can be the final arbiter of whether the powers that we agreed to give to the police are being abused?

[Mr Hurd]

It is wrong for the House, and certainly for Ministers, to speculate on the outcome of this particular investigation. We need to let the police get on with their work, but they and others will have heard clearly the House’s messages of concern. I return to the fact that this Parliament has set up a robust process of checks and balances on the police.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Absolutely, Mr Speaker.

Whose interests were served by tearing Lizanne Zietsman away from her family, business and community, and deporting her against the wishes of the entire community of the island of Arran?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman will understand the distinction between deportation, which happens to foreign national offenders, and removal, which happens to those who are immigration offenders. There is a very clear difference. He will know that I cannot comment on individual cases, but it is worth stating that the Supreme Court has upheld the Government’s minimum income requirement to have dependants and spouses in this country. That is an important principle, which the Government support, because we want people to have an adequate level of income that will enable them to integrate into society.

Immigration

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman has perhaps not read the White Paper and seen the additional offer that the Government are making to international students on post-study work. He would do well to read it. He said that the MAC only gives the Government evidence that we want to hear—far from it. He is falling into the trap of being interested in evidence when it suits him.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Caroline Nokes]

No, I will not.

The MAC concluded both that students should not be removed from the net migration target and that there should be no increase in the length of time that undergraduates are allowed to remain in the UK on completion of their studies. The MAC said:

“We do not recommend a separate post-study work visa”.

I look forward to the SNP’s endorsement of those positions, or are they interested in evidence-based policy making only when the evidence happens to support their pre-conceived notions?

The Government have decided to go beyond the MAC’s recommendations. In our White Paper, we committed to increasing the period of post-study leave for both undergraduates and master’s students because, as I have said, we want our education sector to continue to flourish and to compete strongly on the international stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He will be conscious that, when we are looking for cross-party consensus, there are several across the House who agree with me and him that we should have one immigration policy for the whole of the United Kingdom.

The future system needs to uphold our international obligations in relation to asylum, and to support decisions based on human rights. As I set out last week, we continue to work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to resettle the most vulnerable people from areas of conflict. We have resettled almost 16,000 people since 2015, nearly 3,000 of whom have been resettled in Scotland. In our new consolidated scheme, starting in 2020, we are committed to resettling about 5,000 of the world’s most vulnerable refugees every year. That strategy is to prevent vulnerable people from falling into the hands of traffickers and making dangerous journeys across both land and sea.

It is firmly our view that people should claim asylum in the first safe country, not the last, but where people are in genuine need of our protection, we will provide it. I am proud that this Government have given protection to over 66,000 people since June 2010. Where an individual does not meet our immigration rules or our obligations under international law, I make no apology for making and enforcing decisions that the public expect as a matter of fairness.

[Peter Grant]

May I take the Minister back to her comments on the Migration Advisory Committee? I note with interest that she wants us to accept everything that committee says, but seems reluctant to accept the findings of a House of Commons Select Committee. The creation of the Select Committees was celebrated by Mr Speaker not so long ago.

Can the Minister tell us which member of the Migration Advisory Committee has direct experience of the impact of migration in Scotland? I have just looked at the committee’s website, and there is no doubt that all its members are very august experts in their own field, but none of them has a job anywhere further north than York and, as far as I can tell from the potted biographies, none of them has ever worked in any of the devolved nations of the United Kingdom. Is it any surprise that we should get an Anglocentric set of recommendations from such an Anglocentric committee? If that is not true, will the Minister tell us the name of the member of the Migration Advisory Committee who has direct experience of working in Scotland and seeing how migration affects Scotland today?

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Lady will know, as a former Home Office Minister, that we do not comment on intelligence operations for obvious reasons. In addition, if Hezbollah was behaving in that manner at that time, that would have been under its military wing, as it was classified, and that would have been an act of terrorism and, indeed, would have been subject to the proscription provisions. I therefore do not think that anything different would have happened. However, as the right hon. Lady knows, the Home Secretary recently moved to proscribe the entirety of Hezbollah, partly because of such cases.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to promote the EU settlement scheme.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

EU citizens are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, and we want them to stay. The EU settlement scheme enables them to do so, and we launched a £3.75 million marketing campaign in March to encourage them to apply.

[Peter Grant]

If these people genuinely are the Home Secretary’s friends, colleagues and neighbours, perhaps the Government should start to treat them as such, instead of preparing to make them the victims of another Windrush-type scandal. The Home Affairs Committee recently reported that thousands of EU nationals in the UK run the risk of being left with an uncertain legal future. Does the Home Secretary not accept that it is time to get rid of the application and potential refusal system that they have just now and replace it with as a system of right to remain by declaration? That would leave the onus of proof on the Government if they think that someone should not be allowed to stay, instead of making the person prove that they can.

[Sajid Javid]

The settlement scheme is working incredibly well. To update the House, 800,000 applications have already been made since its launch, with almost 700,000 concluded. The hon. Gentleman mentions Windrush, and if he wants another Windrush, he should continue with the proposal that he just suggested.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Peter Grant Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I will take a couple of interventions.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way and for beginning his remarks by confirming that a major factor in the referendum was immigration. He will be aware that yesterday, when my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) stood almost exactly here and said exactly the same thing, it was hurled down by protest from Conservative Back Benchers, some of whom are still here today. Does he have any indication of why they accept it when it comes from the Secretary of State, but when the same truth is told by the Scottish National party it gets hurled down in protest? Is it that they only like to hear things from themselves and they cannot face accepting the truth from anybody else?

[Sajid Javid]

I was here in the Chamber yesterday at the moment to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and I do not recognise that description at all. What I do recognise is that over a number of years in this House, there have been debates on immigration. One of the issues that hon. Members have reflected from their constituencies is a concern over increasing levels of immigration and a need to take more control, and that is exactly what this deal delivers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful finally to get the chance to contribute to this debate. I am in a bit of an unusual position—I think I am speaking on day six of a five-day debate, which is a privilege not granted to many.

I appreciate the chance to remind the House of some of the reasons—only some of them, because we have only four hours left and others want to speak—why Scotland cannot and will not accept this deal or anything closely resembling it. For me and a great many of my fellow Scots, probably the most damaging and pernicious feature of this entire deal is the very thing the Prime Minister chose to list as its single biggest benefit. When she emailed all 650 MPs ahead of the original withdrawal agreement debate, what did she choose to put right at the top of her list of reasons for supporting the agreement? The fact that it would mean an end to the free movement of people.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department confirmed that today. Despite his protestations, there were howls of protest from Conservative Back Benchers when my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) made the same point yesterday. I find it astonishing that, given the Environment Secretary’s comments yesterday, the party in government seems more concerned about the welfare and free movement of racehorses than about the welfare and free movement of people. The Conservative party believes that ending the free movement of people is the best aspect of this deal. I beg to differ.

In fact, if end the free movement of people were all the agreement did, that in itself would be more than sufficient reason to consign it to the dustbin. I see young parents in my constituency in tears because the Scotland they have come to know and love as their home—the Scotland that made them so welcome—will not be allowed to give the same welcome to their families. I see our precious health and social care services, on which members of my family rely right now, plunged into crisis because the British Government are deliberately making it harder for them to recruit the staff they need. I see my home country, which is known throughout the world as one of the most welcoming and hospitable on the planet, being dragged into a mire of xenophobic, small-minded isolationism by a governing party that has been resoundingly rejected in every election my country has seen during my 58 years on planet Earth. When I see those things, the only response I can give with any kind of conscience is that I will resist the agreement with every cell in my body and for every second that I am granted to remain in this life.

If our people had been told the truth in 2014—if they had been told that the price of continuing to be governed from London would be being part of this vile policy—there would be 59 fewer Members of this Parliament and the national Parliament of Scotland would be exercising full sovereignty as a full partner member of the European Union family.

Members on both sides of the House should look themselves in the mirror and examine their consciences carefully. Is it not utterly despicable that some people set out in 2014 deliberately to target EU nationals, who had the right to vote in our referendum because that was the right thing to do, and say, “You’ve got to vote to be ruled by Westminster because otherwise your future as EU citizens in Scotland could be under threat,” but those EU nationals then saw the rights they enjoyed and expected their families to enjoy taken away from them as a result of a decision their home country voted against in a referendum they were banned from taking part in? I really wonder how some people in this place can sleep peacefully at night.

[Luke Graham]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point about the 2014 referendum. It is despicable when EU nationals’ rights are played with as a bargaining chip, so can he speak to the comment by the then Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, that 160,000 EU nationals in Scotland would be stripped of their right to remain in Scotland if it did not get access to the European Union? There was no unilateral guarantee like the one the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have provided from Nicola Sturgeon then. Why is it okay for the Scottish National party to use EU nationals as bargaining chips but despicable of us to guarantee their rights?

[Peter Grant]

I say first to the hon. Gentleman that his Government refused point blank to give the immediate unilateral guarantees the Scottish Government asked for the day after the—[Interruption.] No, they refused point blank to do it. Nicola Sturgeon was pointing out to EU nationals in Scotland the danger of continuing to have an immigration policy that was reserved to this place. She was not stating what would happen in the event that Scotland became independent; she was warning what might happen in the event that we did not. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the fears being expressed now by tens of thousands of people in Scotland are exactly the fears they were warned about by the then Deputy First Minister.

Let me remind the House of one of the boasts the hon. Gentleman made when he intervened on the shadow Home Secretary. Unless I am very mistaken, he boasted that he had fought to get his constituents passports. The Conservative party is proud of the fact that people who came here to live, work and contribute as a matter of right now have to seek the services of a Member of Parliament to fight to be given the passport that should be theirs as a matter of right. If the Conservatives think that is something to be proud of, that demonstrates once again how far their moral compass is from anything that could ever be accepted in Scotland.

That is only when we consider the moral and humanitarian arguments against what the British Government are seeking to impose on us. It would be bad enough for them to embark on such a regressive, socially divisive path if they thought that it would make us better off, but every one of their own analyses, of which there are quite a few—in fact, just about every credible analysis ever made of the economic impact of free movement of people—tells us that it is good for the host nations, and good for the peoples of the host nations.

The Government’s own analysis shows that, no matter what Brexit scenario we end up with, ending free movement and slashing the rights of immigrants to come here on anything like the scale that they intend will damage our economy. So even if we subscribed to the Thatcherite gospel that there is no such thing as society, but just a collection of individuals—even if we followed that creed of “Let us look after ourselves, and to hell with everyone else”—ending free movement of people would still be the wrong thing to do. To subscribe to this Government’s anti-immigration and anti-immigrant philosophy, we would not just need to be selfish; we would need to be out of oor flaming heids.

On 19 December, during the final Prime Minister’s Question Time of the year, I asked the Prime Minister to name one single tangible benefit that would compensate my constituents for the social and economic damage that we know ending free movement of people would cause. She could not give a single example. If the Home Secretary wants to listen, I will give him a chance to stand up and name one benefit to my constituents of ending free movement, but even if he were interested enough to listen, he would not be able to do so.

In fact, I will happily give way to any Conservative Member who wants to take the opportunity to answer the question that the Prime Minister dodged. None of them wants to do so. No Conservative Member can identify a single tangible benefit that my constituents will see. By their silence, the Conservatives are telling me that I cannot vote for this deal. By their silence, they are telling me that ending free movement of people is not good for my constituents—so how dare they ask me to support it?

The Prime Minister dodged the question, just as she and a succession of Ministers have dodged every difficult question that they have ever been asked during the Brexit process. Indeed, the ongoing debacle over parliamentary scrutiny of this shambles demonstrates that we have not only a Prime Minister and a Government who have lost control, but a Prime Minister and a Government who will cynically play the card of parliamentary sovereignty when it suits them, but will use every trick in the book—and quite a few tricks that are not in the book—to try and stop us doing the job that we were elected to do. They spout their creed of parliamentary sovereignty sometimes, and at other times they do everything possible to undermine it.

They Government went to court to try to prevent Parliament from having any say in the triggering of article 50. They have whipped their own MPs—although not successfully in every case—to vote against allowing this debate even to happen. I have noted on every day of the debate that those who claim that allowing it to take place was an act of treason have not exactly been backward in coming forward and asking to join in at every opportunity. The Government abuse their privileged position in respect of setting parliamentary business to try to strip the meaningful vote of any actual meaning. Like bad-loser, spoilt-brat football managers the world over, they have even resorted to ganging up on the referee to complain and accuse him of cheating every time he gives an offside decision against them—and not just during the 90 regulation minutes of points of order on Wednesday; the Leader of the House even tried to do it again during a wee bit of penalty time yesterday morning.

The Government are mounting an intense campaign of what can only be described as misinformation to frighten Parliament, to frighten our citizens, to frighten businesses, to frighten everyone, into believing that they must accept this deal because it is the only possible deal and the only alternative is no deal. That is simply and palpably not true, and the Prime Minister knows it is not true. How can I be sure that the Prime Minister knows it is not true? Because she has said so herself on at least half a dozen occasions that I can trace. She has said it at the Dispatch Box, and she has said it in television interviews. She has told us that it is not a simple choice between her deal and no deal.

In an attempt to scare the no deal brigade in her own party, the Prime Minister was forced to admit that if her deal failed, Brexit might not have to happen. When I first saw that reported on the BBC website, I thought it must be a mistake, but if it was, it is a mistake that the Prime Minister has made nearly every day since then. Her clearly stated position is that we are not faced with a simple binary choice between her deal and no deal. We still have the option of keeping the deal that we already have. Staying where we are is always an option. The status quo is always available. The best of all possible deals is the deal that we have right now, and I must say to my colleagues and good friends on the Labour Benches that it is the only possible deal that meets their six tests of an acceptable Brexit. If they could only get their act together and accept that, between us we could stop this madness with absolute certainty.

Earlier this week, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), in what I have to say was the most shambolic appearance before a Select Committee that I have ever seen, managed to walk into a trap and make an admission that he had been trying to avoid making throughout the meeting. It was a trap set—presumably by mistake—by one of his own fellow hardline Brexiteers. He was asked:

“Minister, would you agree that, by taking no deal off the table, it weakens our hand in negotiations with the EU?”

His reply was “I would, yes.” Members should think about that for a minute—apart from the slight technical point that there are no negotiations with the EU, because the deal has been done and the negotiations have finished.

Not only the Minister, but one of those hardline Brexiteers in the European Research Group, has admitted that the Government have it in their power to take no deal off the table. Why would they leave it on the table when they know, and everyone knows, that it is the worst possible outcome? Why would they try to force a situation in which it the only alternative, which is what they want us to believe? Why, in recent weeks, have they spent so much time and money telling businesses, trade unions, voluntary organisations and everyone else something that they know is not true?

Only the Government could answer those questions, but when it is put in the context of all the other shenanigans that they have been up to, it seems obvious what they are doing. They know that the Prime Minister’s deal has absolutely no chance of getting through the House on its own merits. In fact, I think most Ministers have known for months that as soon as the Prime Minister set her stupid red lines, there was no possibility of an acceptable deal that complied with those red lines, but instead of doing the right thing—instead of persuading the Prime Minister that she had to change her approach— they set out to try and pauchle the whole process. They were determined that the only vote we would ever have—the vote, remember, that they do not want us to have at all—would be rigged. They knew that the only good thing about the Prime Minister’s deal was that it was not quite as bad as no deal, so they set out to fabricate a situation in which they tried to tell us that no deal was the only alternative. That is why we have seen the Prime Minister’s almost Damascene conversion, virtually overnight, from “No deal is better than a bad deal”—which, by the way, is in the Conservative manifesto—to “Any bad deal is better than no deal”.

That is just one example of the hypocrisy and the double standards that we have seen from this Government, but perhaps the most brazen example of their double standards—and that is saying something—appeared in a tweet earlier this week.

[Ian Murray]

May I intervene briefly on the subject of double standards? The hon. Gentleman is advancing a powerful argument, and the right argument, that it is in Scotland’s interests to remain a member of the European Union, but will he please explain to the House—and to my constituents, and to the people who are watching the debate in Scotland—how he can advance that argument while at the same time advancing the opposite argument that Scotland should pull itself out of its closest and most important Union?

[Peter Grant]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman wants a debate on independence. I suggest that he should be patient, because that debate is coming, not because I want it and not because he wants it, but because the people of Scotland are demanding it. The simple answer to his question, however, is that the nature of Scotland’s union with this place is fundamentally different from the nature of the partnership of the EU.

As I was saying, earlier this week, Glenn Campbell of the BBC—not Glen Campbell the Rhinestone Cowboy, in case Members are wondering—tweeted, after interviewing the Secretary of State for Scotland:

“Scottish secretary @DavidMundellDCT says if PM’s #Brexit deal is voted down he doesn’t see why MPs shouldn’t be asked to vote on it again once they’ve had time to reflect.”

The Secretary of State for Scotland does not see why, having asked MPs to vote on the deal once, the Government should not come back and try again once we have had time to reflect. So it is okay for Conservative MPs—that is who he is talking about—to be allowed to change their minds about the Prime Minister’s deal, and it is okay for Conservative MPs, as the Standing Orders allow them to do, at the end of this year to change their minds and have another go at removing the Prime Minister through another vote of no confidence, but it is not acceptable to allow the people to confirm whether they have changed their minds.

Returning to the intervention of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), at the same time that this Parliament and these nations are being presented with a choice of at least two futures, the people of Scotland are faced with a choice of two futures as well. It is not a choice that they wanted to be forced into and it is not a choice that we wanted them to be forced into: there was a majority vote to stay in the Union of the United Kingdom but there was a significantly bigger percentage majority vote to stay in the union of the EU. Through no fault of the people of Scotland, and against the expressed wishes of the people of Scotland and our national Parliament, we are being forced into a position where it is no longer possible to respect the results of both referendums, so the people of Scotland are going to have to decide which future they want: which of these two unions is more important to us?

Is it to be a true partnership of equals, which, as our friends in Ireland have seen, sees all other members show solidarity and support even for relatively small members of that partnership; or is it to be the so-called partnership where the powers of our Parliament are already being stripped back unilaterally by the British Government, as confirmed by Britain’s own Supreme Court? Do they value more a union that was forged by the desire of former mortal enemies to work together to sustain peace and prosperity across a continent, or a Union that was forged through bribery and corruption for—[Interruption.] Or a Union that was forged through bribery and corruption for the sole purpose of sustaining sectarian bigotry in the appointment of high offices of state? Do they give most importance to a union that has at its core the fundamental belief that the exchange of the free movement of people, the free exchange of talents and the free exchange of ideas benefits us all or one that denounces its citizens as queue jumpers and chooses to exploit them as bargaining chips? The exploitation of migrants as bargaining chips was not the policy of the Scottish Government; it was the stated policy of the colleague of the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) in the United Kingdom Government.

This Parliament faces a choice next week, and it must be a choice not between the Prime Minister’s deal or no deal, but between the Prime Minister’s Brexit or no Brexit. That is the choice this Parliament deserves and demands; that is the choice the people of these islands deserve and demand. The time is coming—and I think it will come a lot sooner than most in here expect—when at least one of the partners of this Union, and possibly more, will see a demand from its citizens to be given a further choice: do we want to remain part of a Union that tramples on the rights of our citizens and which treats us as a second-class nation, not as a partner, at every opportunity, or do we want to remain part of the most successful trading partnership and one of the most successful partnerships for peace—a partnership that even now has numerous other candidate members desperate to get into it? Again, I will give way if anyone on either side of the House—[Interruption.] We have a lot of countries trying to get into the EU, but nobody that has left the empire of the UK has ever asked to come back—nobody that has won their independence has ever asked to come back. I wonder why that might be.

We will be opposing this rotten deal next week not because we think no deal is an option, but because we want, and we demand, the alternative: to give Parliament the choice to say, “Is this the Brexit we expected?” and if not, “Don’t do it.” We have to give that right to the people of these islands as well.

Nobody was elected to this Parliament in 2017 on a no-deal Brexit manifesto. Nobody voted for a no-deal Brexit in the referendum; that was not one of the options. This Parliament and this Government do not have the right to do anything that creates the danger of a no-deal Brexit without the explicit approval for such a course of action from the people of these islands. A Government who claim to respect the democracy of the people or the democracy of Parliament must not attempt to force the issue by effectively giving us a choice between “Would you like to voluntarily give us your money?” or “Would you like me to shoot you?” That is not an acceptable choice; it is anti-democratic. It is fundamentally wrong for the Government to seek to turn this into a choice between doing what the Prime Minister tells us or leaving without a deal.

Not leaving is still an option, and not leaving must continue to be an option, and we will continue to press the case to allow the people to decide whether they want to accept the Prime Minister’s Brexit or, having seen what it really means—having seen the disastrous impact of the deal the Prime Minister has achieved—they want to decide that the best deal we can ever get is the deal we already have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

rose—

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

No, I am not giving way; the hon. Gentleman spoke for a long time. But I will say this: like him, I believe in the sovereignty of the people, and in fact I believe in the sovereignty of the Scottish people, and the Scottish people spoke in 2014 and voted to be part of the United Kingdom. And then the Scottish people, as the British people, took part in the 2016 United Kingdom referendum and the British people spoke, and I believe in their sovereign right to be respected.

So I will rise to the hon. Gentleman’s challenge and say that the benefits the Scottish people are getting from leaving the EU are that they are taking control of their own laws and money, and—something dear to his heart, I imagine—that the Scottish Parliament is going to have more power as a result of us leaving the EU. He seems to be very quiet about that.

In the emergency debate on Tuesday 11 December I emphasised the democratic legitimacy of the referendum vote. The Commons voted to give the decision to remain or leave to the voters by 544 votes to 53, and then we accepted that decision and invoked article 50 by 494 votes to 122.

Nobody could possibly question the courteous determination and sincerity of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who has striven so hard to secure an agreement acceptable to this House from our EU partners, but it now looks most unlikely that this draft agreement will be approved, because it would leave the UK in a less certain and more invidious position than we are prepared to accept.

Nevertheless, the EU withdrawal Act, which sets the exit date as 29 March 2019, did pass this House. It could have included an amendment that the Act should not come into force without an article 50 withdrawal agreement, but we approved that Act, which provides for leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement—I think even my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex voted for that Act. Parliament has now spoken. The Act makes provision for the so-called “meaningful vote”, but not for any kind of vote in this House to prevent Brexit without a withdrawal agreement. Democracy has been served.

For some MPs now to complain that they did not intend to vote for what the Act provides for is rather lame. They may have held a different hope or expectation, but the Government gave no grounds for that. The Government always said, and still say, that no deal is better than a bad deal. Parliament has approved the law and set the date. There is no democratic case for changing it, nor could that be in the national interest.

The right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) reminded us of some of the less pleasant elements on the spectrum of British politics, but elsewhere in the EU, extremism is becoming far more entrenched than here, with AFD in Germany and the gilets jaunes on the streets of Paris, as well as Lega Nord, which has actually taken power in Italy. Popular revolt against the immovability of the established EU consensus in the rest of the EU cannot be blamed on Brexit. On the contrary, our broad and largely two-party democracy has proved to be the most durable and resistant to extremism because we absorb and reflect the effects of political and economic shocks. UKIP died at the 2017 general election because both the main parties pledged to implement the referendum decision without qualification.

But what are some in this House trying to achieve now? What would be the consequences for the stability and security of our democracy if the Government let the politicians turn on the majority of their own voters and say, “The politicians are taking back control, not for Parliament but to keep the EU in control”? The voters did not vote to accept whatever deal the EU was prepared to offer. They voted to leave, whether or not the EU gave us permission. Ruling out leaving without a withdrawal agreement is not a democratic option. They did not vote to remain as the only alternative to a bad deal, they did not vote for the EU to hold the UK hostage, nor did they vote for a second referendum.

Of course, a second referendum is what the EU really wants, which is why it will not give the UK a good deal. It is shameful that so many leading political figures from our country have been shipping themselves over to Brussels to tell the EU not to make concessions in the negotiations with their own Government, in order to try to get a second referendum. The EU is a profoundly undemocratic and unaccountable institution, whose biggest project, the euro, has inflicted far worse disaster on businesses, individuals and families in many countries than even the direst Treasury forecasts for the UK. The economic and political storm clouds are still just gathering over the EU. It is the EU that is on the cliff edge of disaster, not the UK. In the years to come, in the words of Mervyn King, the former Governor of the Bank of England:

“If you give people a chart of British GDP and ask them to point to where we left the EU, they won’t be able to see it.”

Our domestic policies, as well as our trade with the rest of the world, have already become far more important than our present trading relationship with the EU. We will have the freedom to develop them more quickly. Our EU membership does not just cost the net contribution of £10 billion per year and rising, which does no more than avoid some £5.3 billion of tariffs, but it has locked the UK into an EU trading advantage, leaving the UK with an EU trade deficit of £90 billion a year. Why are we trying to preserve such a disadvantageous trading relationship?

Even if we leave without a withdrawal agreement, there will be immediate benefits. WTO is a safer haven than the backstop. Far from crashing out, we would be cashing in. We would keep £39 billion, which would immediately improve our balance of payments and could be invested in public services, distributed in tax cuts or used to speed up economic adaptation. That would boost GDP by 2% over the next few years. We would end uncertainty; the draft agreement would perpetuate it.

Business needs clarity about trading conditions with the EU from day one. Jamie Dimon of J. P. Morgan campaigned for remain, side by side with George Osborne, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. J. P. Morgan now says that extending article 50 is the “worst case scenario” because it does

“not see what it provides us in reaching a clear, final outcome that provides certainty for businesses”.

It adds that paralysis is

“not good for the economy”,

yet that is what the article 50 extenders are arguing for. We will not be caught in any backstop if we leave without a withdrawal agreement, nor will there be a hard border in Ireland. Even Leo Varadkar has said that

“under no circumstances will there be a border. Full stop.”

The EU and the UK Government have said the same.

All of the more ludicrous scare stories are being disproved. There will be no queues at Dover or Calais. The president of Port Boulogne Calais could not have been more emphatic—[Laughter.] Labour Members laugh, because they do not want to hear the truth. The president of Port Boulogne Calais said:

“We have been preparing for No Deal for a year....We will be ready....We will not check trucks more than we are doing today...We will not stop and ask more than we are doing today”.

He added that the new special area for sanitary and phytosanitary checks was somewhere else, and would

“not influence the traffic in Dover.”

The Government and the pharma companies say that they can guarantee supplies of medicines, and the EU Commission has proposed visa-free travel for UK citizens in the EU for up to six months of the year. The EU statement of 19 December already proposes its own transition period of up to nine months, including no disruption of central bank clearing, a new air services agreement, access to the EU for UK road haulage operators and special regulations on customs declarations.

Leaving on WTO terms is far preferable to the protracted uncertainty of either extending article 50 or this unacceptable withdrawal agreement. The leadership of this country—that includes the Government and the Opposition—should stop reinforcing weakness and start talking up our strengths and building up our confidence. History has proved that our country can always rise to the challenge, and our people will never forgive the politicians who allow the EU to inflict defeat. It saddens me greatly that even some in my own party are promoting such a defeat.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

Immigration has been a big part of the Brexit debate and one of the most contentious issues in modern political times. The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) made it clear that the matter should be debated robustly and respectfully, and I hope to do that in my remarks. Like many others, I recognise that immigration stirs passions, and that this House must have the courage to confront an issue that vexes not only our country and our constituents, but the United States and many EU and Asian states. Immigration is an important issue for me. I have been lucky enough to live and work on three separate continents and to experience the immigration regimes of the People’s Republic of China, the Kingdom of Thailand and the republic of the United States of America. I have been through their immigration systems and have seen costs and benefits.

The United Kingdom has had a significant amount of immigration over the past two decades. A Migration Advisory Committee report makes it clear that the experience of immigrants and immigration across the United Kingdom has been different, which is reflected in the numbers. England has far more foreign nationals and people born abroad than Scotland—5.5 million versus 358,000, and 16% versus 9%. That shows that the UK as a whole is not the backward, narrow-minded backwater that so many Opposition Members keep trying to suggest, but a booming international country that has welcomed and always will welcome people who want to live and work here.

First, I want to respond to the criticisms made by some Scottish National party Members, because their contributions have been ill-tempered and poorly judged. They talk about the UK and Scotland as though they are one place, but we know that that is not true. Net migration in London was over 88,000 in 2016-17. In Glasgow, it was just over 5,000. In Perth and Kinross, which I share with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), it was 148. In Clackmannanshire, which sits entirely within my constituency, the average was 15 a year between 2004 and 2016.

Secondly, other parts of the UK are not hotbeds of anti-immigrant sentiment. According to the British social attitudes survey in 2016, there was a variation of only five to six percentage points between Scotland, Wales and England in terms of opinions on immigration, and that is with Scotland having experienced immigration in the thousands and England and Wales in the millions.

Thirdly, SNP Members make themselves out to be champions of EU nationals, but in 2014 the then Deputy First Minister, now First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, clearly said that EU nationals would be stripped of their right to remain in Scotland if Scotland separated from the UK and therefore the EU. They were used as a bargaining chip. It was despicable then and it is indefensible by the SNP Members now.

[Peter Grant]

While this debate has been taking place, BBC The Social, a wonderful fairly new social media channel based in Glasgow, has posted a video of a young woman called Patrycja who arrived from Poland 12 years ago with £100 in her pocket and is now running a vital charity for vulnerable young women in Scotland. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the Immigration Bill should be changed to prevent the next Patrycja with £100 in her pocket from coming to Scotland and bringing the benefits that today’s Patrycja has brought?

[Luke Graham]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman has ever listened to any of my speeches. I am one of the most liberal and pro-immigration politicians in the House. To those who want to work here, live here and contribute, our door should be open, and Patrycja is a fine example of that. I welcome her, just as I welcome the Syrian refugees who have experienced racism in my own constituency. In the last month, I have had grown men in tears in my constituency office because of the racism they are experiencing in my constituency in modern-day Scotland. That racism must be called out and addressed in Scotland, in England, in Wales—anywhere it appears in the United Kingdom—and it will be.

We as politicians should be engaging with this debate. My hon. Friends have talked about being honest and direct. That is completely right. The Migration Advisory Committee report is very clear that immigrants are net contributors to our economy—they make a beneficial contribution to our country—but it also recognises that, where there have been high concentrations of immigration, public money has not followed. We have to invest in the infrastructure so that the burden of immigration—in terms of numbers and public services—is borne by the Government, not individual constituents trying to integrate and contribute.

In my constituency, we have formal advice from Clackmannanshire Council, which is SNP-run, saying that the SNP-run NHS—I have the letter here and I am happy to put it in the Library—has to be mindful of accepting refugees to the area because of the lack of GPs in Clackmannanshire. This shows that the SNP has not managed public services such that we can welcome people to our country.

The immigration proposals and the opportunity through Brexit to shape our immigration policies are very important. We do not need to get lost in a vicious circle of negative stories about immigration. We can talk about the positives, as Members from across the House have done. We have a fine opportunity to develop new visa schemes and forms of co-operation with other countries, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary mentioned earlier when he talked about e-gates. We could use our innovative and entrepreneurial spirit to go one further and consider a US-style green card, which in the past has had cross-party support, although the green might be a problem—I would be happy for it to be blue, if that satisfied other Members.

Let’s be honest. When we are discussing immigration, we are not talking about faceless numbers; we are talking about real people who come here, contribute and make our country better. We need to break the vicious circle. We have a chance to develop a more innovative and welcoming immigration system in this country. Immigration is a sign of success, not failure, and I hope it will continue sustainably once we have left the EU.

Immigration: DNA Tests

Peter Grant Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend some assurances on just that issue. The cases at which we are currently looking, particularly those involving Gurkhas, will be dealt with expeditiously, as he has requested, and there will be no mandatory requirement for DNA evidence. Should people wish to provide it, that is entirely up to them, and of course it will be considered. As I said in my statement, we are looking at ways of reimbursing those who may have had to spend money on DNA tests.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The doctrine of ministerial responsibility makes it clear that Ministers are responsible for what goes wrong in their Departments even if they knew nothing about it. I appreciate that the Home Secretary has taken that to heart today, and has come to the House to apologise. There is also a long-standing convention that, when something goes badly wrong in a Department—and surely acting illegally is pretty badly wrong—the only honourable course for the Minister is to resign. Does that doctrine still apply in the Home Office today?

[Sajid Javid]

I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would be interested in helping to sort things out when they go wrong. That would be the way in which to try to help his constituents if they were caught in something like this. However, it is appropriate that, as we do further work and carry out a review, we look into the chronology of all this and how far it goes back. I have asked officials to establish the exact chronology of events, and to find out what advice was given to what Ministers and when.

Rural Crime and Public Services

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am pleased to speak in this debate. I appreciate that a lot of the things being discussed today are devolved and that therefore much of the detail is unfamiliar to me and does not apply in Scotland, but I hope that I might make one or two comments about the experience in Scotland and that Members might notice some things that are the same and some that are different and perhaps think about why they might be different.

I find it a bit surprising that we are having a three-hour debate on rural crime, when, according to the Minister, rural crime does not exist, and that we are having a debate that appears to be all about policing, despite the fact that the motion does not mention policing at all. There are lots of things about how this place operates that I never expect, or indeed hope, to be able to understand.

It is difficult to know the actual level of crime in either urban or rural areas. It is accepted, including by the police, that a lot of crime goes unreported. We reckon that in Scotland about 30% to 40% of crime is never reported or recorded; for some relatively minor crimes, the figure is much higher. The Scottish crime and justice survey, which asks a large sample of people every year what has happened to them that year, gives more reliable figures.

The survey showed that, between 2008-9 and 2016-17, the number of adults reporting that they had been victims of crime fell by more than a third. The reduction in England and Wales was about the same, although the figures are not exactly comparable. That is important because it tells us that, although the level of crime is still too high and there are still people who genuinely live with the concern and even the fear of crime, it is not as big a problem as some would have us believe.

Something that I found surprising when I was told about it—and it still keeps popping up—is that older people are much less likely to become victims of crime than younger folk. I think that there is a question to be asked about the fear of crime. There are people who make it their business to make old people scared of it, but all the evidence, both from reported crimes and from comments made by people after they have been victims of crime, suggests that they are less likely to be victims.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

In South Yorkshire, the number of insurance claims for rural crime has increased by 54% in a year, so it is clearly an issue. A number of constituents have come to my surgeries to report thefts of farm equipment and antisocial behaviour. A group of 500 Barnsley residents have come together because they are concerned about nightly antisocial behaviour. This is very much an issue for my constituents.

[Peter Grant]

I do not doubt that at all. Indeed, I am about to say something about crimes committed in rural areas. First, there is the problem of definition: how do we decide what is rural and what is not? I would never consider myself to represent a rural constituency, and I would not be considered to do so in the House, but about 3,000 of my constituents undeniably live in rural areas, and probably another 5,000 live in villages and towns that are so small that, while their residents experience many of the benefits of living in small isolated communities, they also experience many of the challenges.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

May I just finish making my point? I did promise to speak for a fairly short time, but that will be difficult if I am too generous.

A finding that appears regularly in the Scottish crime and justice survey—I do not know whether it is reflected in other parts of the United Kingdom—is that people living in rural areas are less than half as likely to become victims of crime as those living in urban areas. While people living in isolated areas undoubtedly feel more vulnerable in respect of some kinds of crime that are more likely to be committed in rural areas, overall, it is the case that rural areas in Scotland—and, I imagine, rural parts of England, relatively speaking—are safer places in which to live. It is also the case, however, that for a victim of crime, the crime rate on that day is 100%.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

When I and my rural constituents travel to the most remote areas of Scotland, we are struck by the difference between the quality of the roads there and the quality the of roads in Lincolnshire. There are no potholes, and there is wonderful broadband and wonderful public services. Is the hon. Gentleman grateful to my Lincolnshire constituents who, through the Barnett formula, are subsidising his own constituents to such an extent, and would he not be sorry to see that go after Scottish independence?

[Peter Grant]

What I am grateful for is the fact that the hon. Gentleman has completely contradicted his Scottish Tory pals, who seem to be away enjoying the sunshine at the moment, but who tell us almost every day of the week that the Scottish Government’s performance on broadband is useless and the UK Government’s is great. One of the things I have learnt today is that even Tory Back Benchers think that the Government are making a complete hash of providing broadband in rural areas. I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman contradict his Scottish pals the next time they raise that particular myth, both when it is relevant to the debate and, more often, when it is completely irrelevant.

Let me return to the comment made by the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock). According to the latest figures from NFU Mutual, in some parts of the United Kingdom, there have been staggering increases in rural crime levels over a fairly short period. I take that to mean that organised gangs have been targeting an area until it gets too hot for them, and then moving on. That is why co-operation and the sharing of intelligence between police forces, and between the police and other agencies, are so vital.

In 2015 the Scottish Government helped to set up the Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime—a partnership between the Government, Police Scotland, NFU Scotland, NFU Mutual, which, obviously, provides much of the insurance cover for rural businesses, and other key stakeholders. In its first full year of operation, recorded rural crime in Scotland fell by 21%. I said earlier that recorded crime figures came with a lot of caveats, but during roughly the same period, NFU Mutual reported a 32% reduction in a single year. This is perhaps not the place to go into detail about what might be done well in Scotland that could be copied or examined in other parts of the United Kingdom, but I simply read those figures to indicate that although people living in rural areas and rural businesses, as the Minister referred to—

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

I will just finish this point. There is no doubt that, when a rural business has a piece of plant stolen that cost it a quarter of a million pounds, it is a massive blow to it, but there are ways—by sharing information and working across constabulary borders and national borders, if possible—in which, if everybody who wants to stop crime co-ordinates themselves as effectively as the criminals sometimes do, we can start to see an end to this, or at least a significant improvement in crime figures, both rural and urban.

[Mr John Hayes]

I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech—it is like a poorly signposted ramble through the Trossachs—but if he is right that much crime is under-reported, does he acknowledge that what may be happening in rural areas is this? Because tolerance of petty disorder and petty crime has risen, many crimes take place irrespective of the effect on their victims, because the victims know that nothing will be done about them so they do not bother to report them.

[Peter Grant]

I cannot comment on that. Scotland is regularly surveyed on public attitudes to policing, and generally speaking, the public have a high degree of confidence in the police and their ability to deal with crime and clear it up. It is not enough—there is not 100% confidence yet, and that has to be the target. From my first days as a councillor 25 years ago, what I have always recommended to my constituents is that there is no such thing as a crime that is too minor to report, because a lot of policing is intelligence-based and trend-based. In the policing model that is used in Scotland, it may be that a similar incident that is reported five or six times will not get a heavy response, but it will eventually trigger a very significant response of the kind that puts a large police presence into the area very quickly. It would be nice if we could get a blue-light response every time somebody phones the police, but that is simply not realistic.

I want to make a few comments on some of the exchanges that I listened to with great interest about the way in which the police service in England and Wales is set up, the way it is managed nationally and locally and the way it is funded. With all due respect, it seems to me that it is a complete and utter mess. I am not convinced that people in any part of England or Wales understand what they are paying for the police force, why they are paying that amount and not a wee bit more or a wee bit less, what they do if they want to pay a bit more to get a better service, or how they can influence the provision of their service.

I cannot understand why people who are sitting in here should take the majority of decisions about how much police funding is needed in Lincolnshire, Cornwall or Lancashire. Surely the people there know their needs better than any of us down here, with the possible exceptions of the hon. Members who represent those particular counties. Since I was elected, I have been struck by the fact that, for its size and diversity, England is a ridiculously centralised place as far as government is concerned. I do not say that meaning to be offensive or to insult anybody. I simply cannot see how local services can be effectively delivered across such a big and diverse country as England when decisions are so centralised in one place. It is bound to mean that a lot of time is spent by MPs from different parts of the country fighting about who gets a bigger share of the cake, when the problem is that the cake is far too wee to begin with.

At the end of the day, it does not benefit any of us if we move some resources from one county to another and a reduction in crime in one part of England is matched by an increase in crime in another. It is much better if we can find ways to resource the police properly, if it is quite clear that they are not properly resourced, and to make sure that crime levels can be driven down across the whole country.

I found the early part of the debate very interesting. It has been an eye-opener to me to hear about the way that local services—particularly the police service—are being delivered in a country that, in so many ways, is an example to the rest of the world. Is it fit for purpose? That is not for me to say, and not because I do not believe in politicians from one country telling other people how to run their country. But I invite Members who represent constituencies in England and Wales to ask themselves the hard question: is the way the police service is set up fit for the 21st century? If not, potentially, there are difficult decisions to be taken.

I will be happy after the debate to give more details about how the police service is set up in Scotland. It is not perfect. There are problems. The new national service has some teething problems and there are things people do not like as much as what they had before, but the fact is that, by almost any measure, public confidence in the police remains high. People’s feeling of being safe is as high as it has been for a great number of years. Three quarters of people in Scotland feel safe walking home alone after dark. It would be nicer if it were 100%, but I was surprised that it is as high as 75%.

There are ways that our respective national Governments can learn from each other about the way we manage and provide public services. I sincerely suggest that Members here with responsibility for policing look at some of the changes that have happened north of the border over the last few years. They were not always easy or popular, but some of what has happened there might give an indication as to changes that could be implemented for the benefit of the 50 million-plus people—there are another 3 million or 4 million people in Wales—who deserve the best police service that can possibly be provided for them.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (David Rutley)]

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), opened the debate by talking about the beauty of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Without wanting to sound competitive in any way, I would like to remind colleagues of the wonders of the Cheshire Peak district—right next door to High Peak, of course—and Cheshire’s beautiful plain. I am grateful to Members on both sides of the House for setting out their views on rural crimes and public services, and I thank the Opposition for securing this important debate.

As the hon. Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) said, this has been a wide-ranging debate with contributions from across the United Kingdom, including from Scotland through the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), and from Wales with speeches from the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) and the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson). However, I must confess that I do believe that this debate was over-represented by Members from Lincolnshire, although we recognise that that is another great county.

The Government are committed to bringing sustainable growth to the rural economy, and to supporting and strengthening communities. We have talked a lot about crime. To reassure the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George), my DEFRA responsibilities are purely for a short-term period until my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) returns to her place.

Around 12 million people—19% of the UK population—live in rural areas. Despite some of the challenges we have talked about today, statistics show that most people feel that our rural towns and villages are great places in which to live and work. The fundamental features of rural areas—being more geographically dispersed and more sparsely populated than urban areas—are the key attractions of the UK’s rural towns and villages. We recognise, however, that distance, sparsity and demography can affect the delivery of important services. Rural areas are further away from the main economic centres and can suffer from poorer access to services and facilities that are commonplace in urban areas.

That is why the Government have made a commitment to rural-proof all policies. Much of what Government do has an impact on rural areas. We want these policies and programmes to take account of the specific challenges—and opportunities—for rural businesses and communities. To support this, DEFRA published updated rural-proofing guidance in March 2017. My ministerial colleagues, including Lord Gardiner, have represented the rural voice on taskforces on childcare, housing, and digital. The rural voice is being heard more loudly across Government, as it should be.

As I said, much of this debate has focused on rural crime. I would like to acknowledge the excellent work of our police—in particular, the North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire forces and PCCs who lead nationally on rural crime issues. That said, there have been incredible contributions from Members praising the North Wales and Derbyshire forces, for example. I would like to add my voice in paying tribute to the great work that Cheshire police do on these issues as well. DEFRA and the Home Office work closely with the National Police Chiefs Council’s wildlife crime network and the National Rural Crime Network. I recently went on patrol with Cheshire’s rural and wildlife crime team to see their work at first hand in the Macclesfield area.

It is important to recall that, although crime has a regrettable impact on victims wherever they are based, crime rates in rural areas are generally lower than in urban areas. For example, there were 3.9 vehicle offences per 1,000 population in rural areas compared with 8.5 vehicle offences per 1,000 population in urban areas. However, as we have heard, remoteness and isolation can increase the sense of vulnerability in those rural areas. There are types of crime such as hare coursing, fly-tipping and sheep-worrying that are a particular problem for rural communities, as has been well expressed today.

I recently heard from the Macclesfield branch of the NFU in Cheshire about how distressing livestock-worrying is for farmers and animals, and about how serious the financial repercussions can be for local farmers. I thank the NFU for producing its illuminating and constructive report, “Combatting Rural Crime”. That is an important contribution to this debate, as I think we will all agree on both sides of the House. Earlier this year, DEFRA wrote to all police forces and local authorities to explain the powers and initiatives available to help to tackle irresponsible dog ownership, including in relation to attacks on livestock. This is a real concern to the right hon. Member for Delyn, who made some excellent points. I encourage him to write to me, particularly on recording crimes, and I will follow up on them. We will listen to the points that he made—absolutely.

Hare coursing was raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), and by many other Members. It is another issue raised by the NFU in its excellent report. The Government recognise the problems that hare coursing causes for rural communities—not just around the activity itself but, as we have heard, the associated violence, damage, and sense of intimidation. The Hunting Act 2004 bans all hare coursing in England and Wales. Anyone found guilty of hare coursing under the Act can receive an unlimited fine. My hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) and the hon. Member for Peterborough (Fiona Onasanya), among others, raised important points about what can be done further to improve the response to this heinous crime. Again, I ask Members to raise those with me in writing and we can follow them up. Whether it is about recording or other issues, we do need to address this with greater vigour.

The Government recognise the costs that landowners face in dealing with fly-tipping. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) made an important contribution on this, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch) and the hon. Member for Peterborough. We are committed to tackling this problem. We have given local authorities the power to issue fixed penalty notices for small-scale fly-tipping and strengthened their powers to seize and crush vehicles of suspected fly-tippers. We will set out further measures to tackle all elements of fly-tipping in our strategic approach to waste crime as part of the resource and waste strategy that DEFRA will publish in the autumn.

DEFRA and the Home Office jointly fund the National Wildlife Crime Unit as part of efforts to prevent and detect wildlife crime. We have provided £301,000 of funding per annum for the next two years. That supports the unit’s important work in intelligence gathering and analysis of wildlife crimes, including some of the crimes mentioned earlier, such as hare coursing, rural poaching and the illegal wildlife trade. We heard more about that important work on Second Reading of the Ivory Bill on Monday.

This debate, however, has not just been about rural crime. It has also touched on public services in rural areas, which I will come on to later, because we must not miss those issues. It is vital that we address other points raised in the debate, including antisocial behaviour in some of our smaller communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) talked about antisocial behaviour in Saltburn. I promise faithfully that my family were not responsible for contributing to that when we went body-boarding there during the recess—in the North sea fog, I hasten to add.

County lines challenges were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), the right hon. Member for Delyn and my neighbour, the hon. Member for High Peak. This is a truly worrying and concerning development. The Home Secretary is co-ordinating a response to this scourge by overseeing a county lines working group with other Government Departments and law enforcement agencies to improve the response to drug dealing, the violent crime associated with it and the exploitation of vulnerable people, which includes those in a rural setting.

The hon. Member for Clwyd South and others raised concerns about speeding. It is true that we have some of the safest roads in the world, but we need to do more, and we need to innovate to find ways to reduce speed on these often very difficult roads. We found ways to do that on one of the most notorious roads, the Cat and Fiddle road going from Macclesfield to Buxton, where we significantly reduced traffic accidents as a result. We need to promote more actively the Government’s important THINK! campaign, particularly among younger people.

Much has been said about police funding. That has been dealt with well by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley for the Opposition and by my hon. Friend the Minister. The 2015 spending review protected overall police funding in real terms. We recognise that we need to respond to changing demands on the police. That is why new flexibility has been given to police and crime commissioners so they can raise the income required to tackle specific local challenges. I am pleased that we have increased the overall investment in policing from £11.9 billion in 2015-16 to £13 billion in this financial year.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who is also from Lincolnshire, reminded us, we should not always be too gloomy about the challenges we face. Of course they are very real, but we need a greater understanding of and ability to respond to new technology. He talked about the use of drones. We need to be innovative in our approach. In Poynton, a village to the north of Macclesfield, we have an excellent emergency services hub where we bring together fire, ambulance and police services. We can get better at taking forward action by looking at innovation.

This is not just about the crime or policing element. We want to ensure that our public services and rural businesses thrive, to support rural communities and those who live in the countryside. We want this experience to be an opportunity, not a challenge, as we may have painted it today. Britain is blessed with beautiful and iconic countryside, which can provide a good quality of life, but we recognise too the challenges of rural life. We will look to support and encourage innovative solutions in the crime arena and also in other areas, such as community hubs in villages to host libraries, surgeries and outreach services.

DEFRA Ministers will continue to champion the interests of rural communities, working with other Departments, including the Home Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on issues such as broadband and mobile reception, to ensure that rural communities can thrive and realise the very real opportunities that lie ahead.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House is concerned that the level of rural crime remains high; notes research by the National Famers’ Union that rural crime cost the UK economy £42.5 million in 2015; recognises that delivering public services across large, sparsely populated geographical areas can be more costly and challenging than in urban areas; agrees with the National Rural Crime Network that it is vital that the voice of the countryside is heard; calls on the Government to ensure that the personal, social and economic costs of crime and anti-social behaviour in rural areas are fully understood and acted upon; and further calls on the Government to ensure that rural communities are not disadvantaged in the delivery or quality of public services.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek permission to raise a matter arising from comments made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) during Prime Minister’s Question Time earlier today. I have advised the hon. Gentleman of my intention to raise a point of order this evening.

During Question Time, the hon. Gentleman stated that Scottish National party Members of the European Parliament had

“voted to back the European Parliament in an attempt…to keep the UK inside the common fisheries policy”.

The records of the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries and of the plenary session show that on both occasions the SNP’s representatives voted against the proposal mentioned. I also have a letter from Ian Hudghton MEP confirming that on both occasions the vote of SNP Members was contrary to the way described by the hon. Gentleman today.

I absolutely accept that the hon. Gentleman acted in good faith, but given that it is now clearly established that his comments were mistaken, I seek your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, about how the record may be corrected.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Chair has no responsibility for what any Member says in the Chamber. He has taken the opportunity to raise what appears to be a genuine mistake on the part of another legislature, in keeping its records, and I am glad that he has informed the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), who has unwittingly made a mistake in giving a certain piece of information to the House.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) asks me how he might put the record straight. I would say that he has been wise and clever in using the device of a point of order to make sure that those on the Treasury Bench, the Hansard reporters, everyone else in the Chamber and those paying attention to these proceedings are aware that an error has occurred, and he has now taken this opportunity to put the record straight.