European Convention on Human Rights

Priti Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I was interested to hear the contribution of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), and particularly his analysis of immigration and what Scotland might look like under his vision of immigration.

It will come as no surprise to the House that I, as a British Asian, follow all things immigration with a degree of interest. I not only welcome this debate but applaud the Secretary of State’s statement to the House last week and congratulate the Government on bringing forward this motion on the application of article 8. I say that in relation to everything the motion is promoting.

For too long our immigration system has, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) highlighted, been left open to interpretation, abuse and the failures of the previous Government to address many issues. Here we are addressing the issue of foreign national offenders and lawyers using human rights as an excuse—the wrong kind of excuse—to cause a range of problems and undermine public confidence in this country’s immigration and criminal justice policies. As has been mentioned, not only did the previous Government fail to address many of the problems that have been touched on today, but their inaction made the situation far worse, which makes the challenge faced by this Government even greater.

Few things have been more damaging to public confidence or caused as much division as what has been perceived as the open-border policy pursued by Labour, which left our borders subject to the consequences of uncontrollable immigration. This is no doubt why, throughout my time as a Member of Parliament, short though it has been thus far, and before then as a candidate, immigration has been one of the most pressing concerns in my constituency when I have been out knocking on doors. Instead of feeling safe and protected by a system that manages immigration responsibly, my constituents have little or no confidence in our ability to protect our borders. It falls upon the shoulders of this Government to redress that balance now, as they are doing.

My constituents are left astounded, shocked and appalled by judgments made under article 8 or other human rights laws that have allowed foreign criminals to walk our streets and commit crimes. We have already heard about some of those crimes this afternoon. My constituents know full well that the immigration and the legal systems defy common sense when criminals such as Mohammed Ibrahim are able callously to kill a young girl and then rely on human rights laws and claim a right to a family life to avoid being deported.

On top of that, the European Court of Human Rights has been blocking us from deporting Abu Qatada. We have had the issue of prisoner votes in this country. All this highlights how powerless Parliament has become when faced with the onslaught of human rights case law. What these decisions by immigration tribunals and judges do is demonstrate that the human rights laws that they are following alongside case law value the rights of criminals over the rights of the law-abiding majority and the victims of crime. They also undermine the entire immigration system, including those who come to this country who are self-sufficient, want to be British, want to contribute to our economy and, importantly, want to abide by this country’s laws.

It is therefore absolutely right that the Government pursue the changes not only to rebalance the immigration system, but to prevent these outrageous and appalling abuses from happening in the future. It is fundamentally important to our democracy that Parliament is able to hold the courts to account and lay down guidance and rules for them to follow. I urge Ministers to press ahead, regardless of some of the hollow criticism that we have heard, because the public expect the Government to act on such issues, to put in place proper controls on immigration and to put an end to the appalling way in which human rights laws have been subject to interpretation.

The Home Secretary rightly said this afternoon that coming to Britain to live and settle is a privilege. When foreign nationals break our laws, show scant regard for our way of life and put the law-abiding majority at risk, they should expect to be deported. They have wilfully chosen to offend, and in those circumstances they have chosen to forfeit their entitlement to remain in this country. The Home Secretary can be assured of my support and the support of my constituents as she presses ahead with these important reforms. This is a positive and welcome motion, but on the wider issues of immigration and deportation, I would like to see further steps. The public expect more proactive steps forward.

We have heard about the 5,000-plus foreign national offenders who were deported last year, but 11,000 remain in our prisons. Under the present rules it is almost impossible to deport some of the 4,000 who are of European origin. I would like to see the motion taken further, although that is not the subject of the debate today. In a future system foreign prisoners who need to be deported should go straight from jail to a plane. That would go a long way in reassuring our constituents and increasing confidence in the system.

I support the motion and hope that it will be the first of a number of positive measures to bring power and decision making back to this Parliament so that we can regain control of our borders and regain public confidence when it comes to human rights issues in this country.