Nationality and Borders Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to welcome as Deputy Speaker one of my former neighbours from Cross Gates in my constituency of Leeds East. It is good to see you in the Speaker’s Chair. What it is not good to see, however, is this vile Bill.

I have been a Member of Parliament for six years, and in that time I have seen some vile legislation—legislation that punches down and attacks the poorest and most vulnerable, from the bedroom tax to the slashing and denying of benefits for disabled people, and welfare caps that force children into destitution—but this dreadful Bill is up there with the worst of it.

I find the Bill stomach churning. I cannot help but feel sick reading it, reading the Government’s plans and reading what they want to do to vulnerable people, including children fleeing war, rape and torture. The Bill will criminalise people seeking asylum simply because of how they get here. That is not only immoral; it is in breach of international law, although that is not all. The legislation—this rotten, sick legislation—opens the door to offshore detention centres. What kind of dystopian society do the Government want to create? They want offshore detention centres where, hidden from public view, people seeking asylum can be subjected to the mistreatment the Government are already known for, without any accountability.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that some of the most vulnerable and needy people are from Syria? Would he be surprised to hear that when the camp at Sangatte was cleared, of the 750 migrants who came here, only eight were from Syria? No one in Syria can afford the cost of the people smugglers.

[Richard Burgon]

It appears that there is a twitching of a conscience one Bench back from the Tory Front Bench. If the hon. Gentleman has a conscience on these matters, if he cares about the people he purports to care about from Syria or from anywhere else, I would urge him to vote against the Bill, because this reactionary Bill should be killed off today.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

To bring things a little more up to date, if we are looking at the statistics about who is in these boats crossing the channel, the nationalities are Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Eritrean and Sudanese. People from almost all those countries have success rates when they claim asylum of about 60% or 80%. The vast majority of people crossing the channel are refugees. Instead of locking them up, let us look at their applications.

[Richard Burgon]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and brings some reality to this debate. This reactionary Bill should be killed off today.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Burgon]

No, I will not give way. I will only give way if the hon. Gentleman wants to stand up and say he will vote against this dreadful Bill.

The Bill is not a one-off. It is the latest in a long list of racist interventions from the Government—a Government who have already deliberately stoked division and hate over the past decade. From the “go home” vans touring working-class communities to the Windrush scandal that saw black citizens deported, to the hostile environment policy and the attacks on Black Lives Matter, hatred, division and racism are used as weapons of mass distraction to try to shift the blame for Tory policies that hurt the majority of society. Rather than to blame the Government for the lack of school places and council houses, or the underfunding of our health service, the Government want to encourage people to blame their neighbours and other people in their community. The good news is, however, that the working class in all its diversity in this country is better than that and better than this Government.

Listening to speeches from the Government Benches, they remind me very much of speeches by Donald Trump. I think that, like Donald Trump, the Government’s approach will be thrown into the dustbin of history before too much longer. The policies that this divisive approach seeks to distract from and shift the blame from mean that people’s wages have not improved in over a decade. These are policies that have slashed key local services and ripped the heart out of many communities.

This Bill comes at a time when millions and millions of people have been having a long-overdue debate on racism in our society. Last week, England footballer Tyrone Mings rightly called out the Government for stoking the fire, because racism starts from the top. We have seen, of course, Tory MPs make themselves look like complete mugs, attacking footballers for being opposed to racism and showing their opposition to racism. The Bill that we are looking at today is exactly the type of legislation that we end up with when we have a Prime Minister who has labelled black people piccaninnies with watermelon smiles and Muslim women letter boxes. [Interruption.] Conservative MPs can groan and shake their heads all they want, but they should save their outrage for the people who will be criminalised, demonised and abused by this legislation, should it pass.

The Tories have a low view, as I have said, of working-class people and hope that they can whip up anti-immigrant sentiment to distract from their own failures. I do not share that view, and the response we have seen over the last week in this huge national conversation about racism shows that, while racism starts from the top, anti-racism and solidarity start from below. This legislation is about fear. It is about division. It is about hate. In the diverse, multicultural communities across the country that have come together over the last week we have seen a far better country than the one that this Government imagine—a country full of the spirit of community, the spirit of unity, the spirit of hope, and I encourage anyone, regardless of their political party, with an ounce of humanity in them to reject this Bill today.

I make this speech thinking of the asylum seekers I have met in my immigration surgeries at the Bangladesh centre in my constituency, and thinking of the sons and daughters of asylum seekers who go to school at Bankside Primary in Harehills in my constituency—a school where over 50 languages are spoken. I make this speech thinking of them, and this is just a small part of my effort to speak up for them, because those in power, those in government, are not speaking up for them; they are sticking the boot into them. They are chasing favourable headlines from the disgraceful individuals that run newspapers like The Sun that seek to divide the working class, but those views, I am glad to say, are going out of date. Our country is a far better, far more decent place than this Government imagine. That is why this rotten, racist, divisive approach is, in the long term, bound to fail. So I urge everyone who is appalled by the idea of offshore asylum seeker processing centres and everyone who is opposed to this to do what is right and vote against the Bill.

[Jonathan Gullis]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice. The hon. Gentleman has thrown the slur of racism at the Conservative Benches throughout his speech, yet he was a key leading member of the Labour party that was found to be institutionally racist at its core due to the antisemitism that took place. I ask for your ruling on whether that—

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

As the hon. and learned Lady says, formal investigations are going on, and of course the Home Office will support them in any way that we are asked. In relation to the internal review that is taking place, I have not received that report yet, but when I do, I will look at it carefully and consider how best to proceed thereafter. On the question of hotel use, I think we all agree that it is not ideal. We are working as rapidly as we can to reduce and eventually end the use of hotels, not just in the city of Glasgow but across the whole United Kingdom.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)]

Last Friday, we saw the senseless murder of police sergeant Matt Ratana while he was on duty in Croydon. His tragic death in the line of duty is a reminder to us all of the risk that our brave officers take each and every day to keep us all safe. I know the House will join me in paying tribute to his courage and service, and also in sending our sincere and heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.

A murder investigation is now under way, and I remain in regular contact with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police. The entire policing family are grieving, and they have my full support. I will continue to do everything in my power to protect them, including spearheading work to double sentences for attacks on emergency workers, and legislating to introduce a police covenant to enshrine in law support for our officers and their families.

[Richard Burgon [V]]

The PCS union has raised fears that Serco could be handed contracts to carry out the very sensitive interviews of people who are seeking refuge here in our country. Serco’s disastrous handling of much of our test and trace system shows once again why such giant outsourcing companies should not be running key public services. Does the Home Secretary accept that we must protect vulnerable people who are seeking asylum, and that that means not handing sensitive asylum interviews over to Serco, or other private contractors, to make money from?

[Priti Patel]

As the hon. Gentleman has already heard throughout oral questions, the fact of the matter is that we are totally committed, and rightly so, to protecting the way in which those who seek asylum are treated in our system. He has already heard about strains and pressures, and it is right that we undertake all interviews in the right and proper phased way. That is exactly what we are doing, in a responsible manner.

Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Notwithstanding my hon. Friend’s obvious concern for justice to be served for those victims, I obviously cannot comment on the case or, indeed, what the person who I understand is in custody is being held in custody in connection with. However, I know that those people who are involved in the investigation and then prosecution and conviction of whoever is identified as the perpetrator of this crime will certainly have the sentiments that she expressed in the front of their minds.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

Direct action is a proud part of our history and democracy. Through it, the Chartists and suffragettes helped secure the right to vote and trade unions won the eight-hour working day and paid holidays, and it played a key part in securing legislation for gay rights and for women’s and racial equality. If pursued, would not the Home Secretary’s suggestion of defining Extinction Rebellion as a criminal gang be a betrayal of our proud tradition of civil liberties?

[Kit Malthouse]

Direct action is not the same thing as a crime. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that there are certain crimes that he wishes to ignore, then I am afraid the Opposition are in a very difficult place. I am the Minister for policing and crime, and when, under our current law as approved through this House, somebody commits a crime, I have no choice other than to condemn it.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

Today, with this Bill, the Government are seeking to grant themselves powers to reshape our immigration system, with little scrutiny and with little regard for the rights of people who, sadly, they dismiss as low-skilled simply because they do not earn a high salary. These Government plans are built on the right-wing neo-liberal myth that people’s salary determines their skills and their value. Well, the coronavirus crisis has shown all of us whose work actually is essential to keeping our society running, and many of those workers earn far less than the Government’s proposed salary threshold of £25,600. Let us be clear: workers earning under the threshold are not low-skilled; they are low-paid. All of us have a moral responsibility to recognise their contribution, and not to introduce rules that restrict the rights of low-paid workers even further, because it will be our communities, and often the most vulnerable members of our communities, who will pay the price for this.

Our care system is facing an unprecedented crisis, and our Government, shamefully, are seeking to make it harder for careworkers to come to this country to contribute. The founder of our national health service, Aneurin Bevan, once remarked that we could manage without stockbrokers, but we would find it harder to do without miners, steelworkers and those who cultivate the land. The 21st-century equivalent is that our society could cope a lot longer without hedge fund managers, fat-cat landlords and billionaire tax avoiders and tax evaders than we could without bus drivers, bin collectors, supermarket workers, carers and other low-paid workers who under these rules will face tougher restrictions than the top earners.

Our approach to the Bill today cannot be divorced from the record of this Government over the past decade. This Government, with their hostile environment, have used their narrative on immigration as a way to scapegoat one part of the working class for problems the working-class as a whole face due to austerity, cuts and free market fundamentalism. This Government are wilfully scapegoating migrants to let off the hook those who are really responsible for the economic failings of the past decade.

Just the other week, an NHS physician in my constituency who came here from Egypt wrote to me distraught because, as he put it to me, if he were to die in service of our NHS due to coronavirus, his dependent family would be booted out of this country. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, the Government have shifted on this, but they should not have had to be asked in the first place—and why can they not extend that change in position to careworkers?

How can we trust a Government who oversaw the hostile environment? How can we hand over powers to the Government to create a new immigration system with far less scrutiny than previously? How can we trust that there will not be a second Windrush crisis affecting many thousands of EU citizens who came to make their life here but have not yet been granted settled status? How can we trust that, under political pressure, the Home Secretary and this Government will not make immigration policy that is designed not to serve the interests of working-class communities or diversity, but to chase headlines in the right-wing newspapers?



I was one of the sponsors of a reasoned amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy). It was not selected, but I nevertheless want to reiterate demands made in it. I want the Government to think again about this immigration Bill. We need the Government to think again and to protect the rights of British citizens to live, work and study in other EEA member states. We need the Government to think again and grant EEA citizens currently living here in the UK automatic permanent settled status. We need the Government to reflect long and hard on the history of the Windrush scandal and of “Go Home” vans touring estates, making a hostile environment for people in our communities. The Government need to reflect on that. They need to reflect on who really contributes to our society.

The Government also need to reflect on the need to end the scandal of indefinite detention, which makes us, in a very shameful way, stick out like a sore thumb in Europe—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has exceeded his five minutes. We now go to Dr Jamie Wallis in Bridgend.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. We are having this debate for one reason only, namely the tireless campaigning by the bereaved families and the survivors, and the overwhelming public support they attracted as a result. The e-petition, signed by over 150,000 people, forced this debate, and we should be clear that it forced the Prime Minister’s welcome shift from her previous position on Friday, when she granted a panel of some description in the Grenfell inquiry.

That is testament to the efforts of the bereaved families and survivors, but after everything they have been through, they should never have had to wage such a campaign. Far too often in this country, politics seem to act as a dam holding justice back, rather than helping justice to flow. Hillsborough, Stephen Lawrence and Bloody Sunday are all examples of when the state did not use its great powers to deliver truth and justice, but instead blocked truth and justice for years and years. In all of those cases, the state was accused of a cover-up by those affected. Distrust was sown. We cannot allow Grenfell to join that list.

Race, class and power are at the heart of this. Justice delayed is justice denied, so it is essential that the Grenfell inquiry gets it right first time, but it has got off to a rocky start. Most people will find it frankly unacceptable that to get justice, the bereaved and survivors of Grenfell have had to hold marches and organise rallies, petitions and lobbies, when they are still in shock about the horrific events that they witnessed and lived through, when they have lost everything, and when they are still trying to rebuild their lives and secure a home, as we have heard.

Friday’s decision to grant a panel of some description can be a stepping stone to justice, but for that to be the case, we need to be clear that it is not the end point, but a staging post. It needs the Government to draw the wider lesson. It must win the hearts and minds of those affected by the Grenfell fire.

A public inquiry aims to get to the truth as a key step to delivering justice. No inquiry can ever achieve that if it does not have the trust of those directly affected, and no inquiry can ever assume that it will automatically have that trust, nor can it demand it. Trust must always be earned. That is why the demands for an inquiry panel were important, and why it became a totemic issue for the full confidence of the bereaved, the survivors and the wider public.

From the start, survivors said that they wanted a panel to help to tackle the obvious distrust. It was always a reasonable demand. As we have heard, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, which marked a watershed in uncovering institutional racism, had a similar type of panel overseeing it. As we have also heard, that panel reflected a wealth of relevant experience. That diversity was its strength, as Lord Macpherson later stated. That legitimacy led to calls for widespread change, which must be replicated with the Grenfell inquiry, but the demand for Grenfell was ignored, misrepresented and then denied. That further damaged trust and confidence.

Trust would have been stronger had the panel been granted when the demand was first made 10 months ago. Trust would have been stronger had the Prime Minister not waited until just days before Christmas to formally reject the panel. Now it has been granted, however, it needs to be a sign that the Government are going to behave differently. The ball is in the court of the Government, and specifically of the Prime Minister, who is the Minister nominated under the Inquiries Act 2005.

The Government have taken a step in the right direction, but lots of questions remain unanswered. I will put those questions to the Minister, and hopefully he can give me guarantees. I will also write to him later and, with the inquiry set to restart very soon, I hope that I will get an answer within seven days. As mentioned earlier, on Wednesday, there is an Opposition day debate on Grenfell and housing. If we do not get answers quickly, there will be an Opposition day debate on the inquiry itself.

Much of the discussion has focused on the panel, but I want to make an important clarification. We are here to debate not just the panel, but the whole petition launched by affected families and backed by 150,000 signatories. That petition is entitled, “Call on PM to take action to build public trust in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry”. As well as a panel, it asks that,

“Legal representatives of bereaved families see all evidence from the start & are allowed to question witnesses at the hearings”.

I would argue that we have had a partial response to one of the petition’s demands. We need answers to much more. Why is the panel going to sit only in phase two of the inquiry? What if the panel members need to revisit issues in phase one? Where are we with the second demand in the public petition about survivors’ lawyers having all the evidence from the start? Just a tiny fraction of the material has been disclosed to lawyers so far. Where are we with lawyers being able to cross-examine the witnesses, as happened in the Lawrence inquiry? The families cannot be expected to negotiate with the Prime Minister through public campaigns and petitions, so we need to know.

What formal mechanisms are there for bereaved family members and survivors to request more panel members? What formal mechanisms are there to guarantee the ongoing confidence of survivors and of the bereaved family members in the inquiry? How do they make formal requests and what is the formal public way of responding? We need greater clarity from the Government on all those things. As one family member said to me: “We must do what is necessary, not what is convenient.” There must be no repeat of the delays and denials we have seen in recent months. The Government must meet all the demands of survivors and of the bereaved.

In bringing my remarks to a close, I will highlight a key flaw in the current inquiry process. We are relying on the Prime Minister, who is the Minister nominated under the 2005 Act, as I mentioned, to do the right thing, but surely justice should not be about the conscience or whims of one person, however powerful. Surely justice should be a right. That is why I urge the Government to press on with the Hillsborough law, which the bereaved Hillsborough families advanced as a way of preventing what happened to them from happening to others. I hope the Government will provide parliamentary time and support for the passage of such a Bill into law. Martin Luther King once said:

“Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”

We need to ensure that our laws serve justice and are not seen as a block to justice.