Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I assure the hon. Lady that both I and the Home Secretary have many meetings with police and crime commissioners, both from urban and rural areas; indeed, I met all the Welsh PCCs in one group in recent months. If the hon. Lady and her police and crime commissioner are worried about fuel duties, I remind her that it is this Government who have frozen fuel duties and ended the fuel duty escalator that the Government she supported kept throughout their time in office.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary join me in congratulating Northamptonshire police, the police and crime commissioner, Adam Simmonds, and Chief Constable Adrian Lee on overseeing a 23% cut in violent crime—over halfway to their target of a 40% cut by 2016— that makes it the second most improving force in the country in this area of crime?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

I am happy to tell the hon. Lady what is fair. What is fair is that recorded crime in the Slough community safety partnership is down by 26% in the 12 months to June 2013, which is greater than the overall figure for England and Wales. That was between 2012 and 2013, so I am sure the hon. Lady will welcome this improved service to her constituents.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T5. After the wave of mass immigration under the previous Labour Government, my constituents believe that this country is full, and do not want to see unrestricted immigration from Romania, Bulgaria and, as it now turns out, up to one third of Moldova. At this late stage with a month to go, I urge the Home Secretary to think again and not to waive the transitional controls.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend raises a serious issue. As he knows, Wolverhampton is one of the 33 priority areas to which the Home Office is giving particular help on this issue. We are working with Wolverhampton and other areas to tackle gang-related drug dealing as part of the ending gang and youth violence programme, and we will continue to do so and also use the new National Crime Agency and the serious organised crime strategy to ensure that we continue to attack the organised crime routes of drug dealing in too many of our cities.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The good news from Northamptonshire is that overall crime is down 14% in the last three years, but the bad news is that for every 1,000 people in the county, there are 11 crimes of violence, compared with eight per 1,000 in Merseyside and 10 per 1,000 in Greater Manchester. Surprising though these figures may be, will my right hon. Friend ensure that when the Home Office allocates funds to regional police forces, it takes such statistics into account?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner for the local interests of his constituents, as he should be, and we hear all the recommendations he makes to us. His county is lucky to have a particularly good police and crime commissioner, who will, I know, bear down hard on crimes of violence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not hear my answer. There is genuine discontent about the way in which the perfectly reasonable articles in the convention have been misused in this country’s legal system, such that in many cases people who should not be able to use them misuse them in order to abuse this country’s hospitality by staying here when they have no right to do so and generally bring the whole concept of human rights into disrepute. The hon. Gentleman and I would agree that human rights ought to be the bedrock of a democratic society, but the problem with the current system is that that is in danger of no longer being the case. I would have hoped that he would welcome our attempts to reform it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T5. If it is true that there are still almost 11,000 foreign national offenders in our prisons, what steps are being taken to negotiate compulsory prisoner transfer agreements with other nations so that these people can be sent back to secure detention in their own countries?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

Kettering is fortunate to have an excellent bench of magistrates and the whole nation should be grateful for the tremendous unpaid work carried out by 24,000 magistrates up and down the country. Is the Minister aware that £40 million could be saved in the criminal justice system were he to undertake this simple revision of magistrates’ powers? Justice would be better, cheaper, quicker and more local as a result.

[Damian Green]

I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s high regard for magistrates both in Kettering and around the country. They are indeed volunteers who do a very good job. I am aware of the Magistrates Association’s proposals and the costings and savings that have been suggested. Those proposals bear scrutiny, because there will be second-order effects such as potentially more people in prison and more defendants electing to have a Crown court trial. As I said, the main thing to do is to ensure that people do not reoffend, which is why we have concentrated on extending supervision to short-sentence offenders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I can only give the hon. Lady the facts. In the Greater Manchester police area, crime went down by 10% over the past year. Her constituents’ streets are safer than they were a year ago, two years ago and three years ago, and 84% of the public say that they are satisfied with Greater Manchester police. On the specific point that she raises, the HMIC report states that the force will save money through collaboration, but that

“the public will not notice any difference in the service they receive in their community.”

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in commending Adam Simmonds, the new police and crime commissioner for Northamptonshire, who, in his draft crime plan, commits himself to retaining at 1,220 the number of police officers that he inherited, while at the same time creating a new large-scale reservist police force of up to 200 officers, each of whom will be required to give 20 days a year?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I agree, and that is why I made the point to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) that it is for the courts to decide the appropriate punishment. That might well be the use of restorative justice, which is particularly effective with young offenders.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I declare my interest as a special constable with the British Transport police. Although the age of criminal responsibility is 10, effectively many police officers will not do anything in the case of a miscreant under the age of 16. May we have a change to the law, whereby if a police officer were to issue a fixed penalty notice for somebody under 16 who committed antisocial behaviour or a crime, it would be served on their parents or guardians so that they would ensure that their children behaved properly?

[Damian Green]

I am always interested by the expertise my hon. Friend brings to this issue, given his welcome work as a special constable. I shall certainly consider his suggestion seriously.

Foreign National Offenders

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I speak to the Justice Secretary in the Scottish Government on a regular basis about various issues, because of the devolved powers in this area. I am afraid I do not have the exact figure that the hon. Lady asks for to hand, but I will write to her with it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister name and shame the three countries from which most of the foreign nationals in question come and that are being the most awkward in facilitating their return to secure detention in their own countries?

[Damian Green]

Two were named in the weekend press, but they were not, in fact, the most awkward. Awkwardness is difficult to define. The two countries named were Jamaica and Nigeria, whose nationals account for most such prisoners. However, I should pay tribute to both countries’ Governments, who are considerably more co-operative now than they were. I visited Nigeria recently, where I visited a prison, part of which had been built by the British taxpayer specifically to make it easier for us to return Nigerian national prisoners to Nigeria. That is the kind of practical action we are taking.

Border Control Scheme

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

For the fourth time, I will tell Opposition Members—I wish their Whips could have thought of more than one question for them to read out—that every private flight is checked against the warnings index before it arrives. That is what makes it safe.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents want to know the definition of private flights, which of the main airports they fly to, and what proportion of total passenger numbers is made up of such flights.

[Damian Green]

The definition is a flight that is not a scheduled flight. The number of airports that they fly into is in the hundreds, because frankly anyone who puts up a windsock in a field can have a private airport, but the number regularly used for private flights is between 100 and 150. The biggest usage of private flights is into our biggest airports, because most of them tend to be business flights.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady will know that later this afternoon my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will make a statement covering the issues that she is interested in. The reductions in staffing are not affecting the front line because we are improving the front line by, for instance, having airline liaison officers overseas. Over the past few years, that has prevented 60,000 people whom we did not want to travel from travelling in the first place. The use of facial recognition technology and e-gates also makes our borders more secure.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister assure the House that the effectiveness of our front-line border controls will not be undermined by pressure to reduce queues at airports?

[Damian Green]

As I have just explained to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), it is important to have intelligent border controls, to use technology and to put the right people in the right places so that we can keep our borders secure. Those are elements of this Government’s transformation of the UKBA to sort out the shambles that we inherited.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

We are indeed speaking to many universities and listening to their representations, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has met the vice-chancellor of Exeter university. I am sure that when our proposals are put forward, universities will discover that they defend the rights of legitimate students to come here to study legitimately at legitimate institutions. At the same time, we will also crack down on the huge and widespread abuse of the student visa.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Which three countries are responsible for the largest number of illegal immigrants into Britain and what specific steps are being taken with those countries to take those people back when they are caught?

[Damian Green]

By definition, illegal immigrants do not go through the system, so it is quite difficult to give accurate figures about where they come from, but we know the main routes by which people come into the country, one of which is from Asia, through Turkey into Greece. We are working very hard with both the Greek and Turkish Governments to stop that route and minimise the problem. One of the most effective things we are doing is improving our border controls at Calais, which mean that the number of people who are identified as coming across illegally into Britain is now running at about a third of the level it was 18 months ago. That is a significant strengthening of our border defences.

Counter-terrorism

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

It would be inappropriate for me to comment on any individual cases on the Floor of the House. I am sure that my hon. Friend understands that this is not a venue where one should discuss individual police activity.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Although I support the reduction to 14 days, Her Majesty’s Government are not treating Parliament properly on this issue. The Home Secretary will be in the House on Monday to take Home Office questions, so presumably it would be perfectly possible for her to make a statement then. The Order Paper does not list any statement on the issue for Wednesday.

[Damian Green]

The Order Paper for Wednesday is yet to be produced, so I am not entirely sure about the force of my hon. Friend’s statement. As he says, those who are eager to question the Home Secretary will have the chance to do so on Monday anyway, so I am sure that we can return to the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T3. What steps are being taken with the help of the French authorities to stop the steady flow of illegal immigration from the northern French coast into our channel ports?

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

Very effective steps. I am grateful to the French Government for the changes that they have made, not just the closure of Sangatte some years ago but, more recently, the clearing of “the jungle”, the unofficial camp that was set up. We also have our own juxtaposed controls. British customs and immigration officers are standing on the French side of the border, not just in Calais but at the Gare du Nord and other rail points at which people can gain direct entry to Britain. That has had measurable results. The number of illegal immigrants caught in Kent in the area of the channel ports is now running at about a fifth of the previous level, so the extra controls are visibly working.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Damian Green

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The rationale, as with all our proposals on language, is that those who wish to come to this country need to be able to play a full role in its life. If as many people as possible who live and settle in this country are able to speak English, they will lead more fulfilled lives and be able to integrate better in our communities. That would be extremely helpful.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

11. How many asylum applications were made by individuals who had passed through another safe country to get to the UK in the most recent year for which figures are available.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

In 2009, 2,665 cases were positively identified as having travelled through another EU member state that is considered safe under schedule 3 to the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004.

[Mr Hollobone]

What do we do with those people? Surely we should not be giving asylum to people who come to this country via another safe country. Yes, let us give asylum to people who are genuinely fleeing persecution, but not to tourists.

[Damian Green]

I rather agree with my hon. Friend, who will know that, under the previous Government, one of the many shambles in the immigration and asylum system was the problem of being able to remove people to safe countries. We will try to do better. The Dublin regulation, which is the system under which we do this, is working—in 2009, the UK removed 625 more cases than we accepted—but it is not working well enough. [Interruption.] If former Ministers on the Opposition Front Bench can contain themselves, I shall give the reason: we must do better at returning cases to specific EU countries. We are doing better with Italy. The next case that we really need to get to grips with is Greece, but the Government are determined to do this.